ultraviolence
by lady lutka
Summary: His fists are made for ruin and she has a porcelain heart (darling, why is it that you look so cruel in the dark?) —gray&juvia /ganglife!fic/ /modernAU/ cover image contains caps by seiikas
1. take me to the top then watch me fall in

_DISCLAIMER:_ I do not own Fairy Tail.

 _WARNING:_ You WILL NOT find invincible Juvia and Gray here. I have written Ultraviolence around the manga versions of Gray and Juvia we see in 423-426; dark, desperate, absolutely ruthless and broken beyond any sort of salvation. You WILL find the Juvia that drowned a whole village because Gray left her like she meant nothing. You WILL find Blackheart Gray, the death-demon, the man that revered the darkness and embraced it like a lost lover.

 _SUMMARY:_ His fists are made for ruin and she has a porcelain heart (darling, why is it that you look so cruel in the dark?) —gray &juvia ganglife!fic

 _EXTRA:_ credits to tumblr user _**seiikas**_ for the images featured on the cover image!

 **edited 30/11/2017**

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Lyrics are from _**Electric** _ by **Alina Barez** _x_ **Khalid** ~

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/

 ** _covered in your water and i'm feeling like a summer breeze_**  
 ** _submitted under power and you brought me to my knees_**

 ** _._**

 ** _._**

 ** _._**

 _HE WATCHES HER WITH SHADOWED EYES FROM THE SMALL DISTANCE BETWEEN THEIR FACES._

His honeyed words swirl colours and patterns in her head as she desperately attempts to keep herself afloat in her own mind. The lights in the club are bright and dance across his pale skin in a spectrum of colours. However briefly, she distantly wonders how a man as dark and powerful as he could be found in a small club downtown. Surely the grinding bodies and flirtatious smiles are a sight much too insignificant for eyes like his to gaze upon?

His lips are soundless as they brush against her ear, and yet his words seem to resonate within her stuttering chest. Her skin prickles with each brush of skin, each exhale of cool breath. His hands are cold on her shoulders but his fingers trail blazes down her arms.

"What's your name?" he utters lowly, and she is forced to lean her head further against his jaw. His voice is deep and holds swirling storms and hurricanes within it. Her body is wracked with Rome-ruin at the slightest whisper, the lowest of utterance transporting her to a world so cold and dangerous and yet she loves it. She craves the hurt, the cold, the storm.

"Juvia," she replies into his ear, desperately ignoring the way her voice stutters.

His chuckle weakens her knees. "Juvia," he repeats slowly, testing the name on his tongue as if it were a foreign spice. After a few moments that feel like aeons to her beating heart, he nods. "It's very fitting."

Juvia takes the man in with wide eyes. His head looms above her pleasantly, dark hair falling into equally dark eyes. Everything about him screams _danger_. His cargo pants cling to his hips deliciously, the white V-neck shirt almost too tight against the plains of his corded chest. His muscular arms are wrapped firmly around her small frame; the hands around her shapely hips almost feel like pieces to a matching puzzle finally locking into place.

"Care to dance?" he asks her, and Juvia's cheeks flush in anticipation.

"Juvia would love to."

He quirks a brow at her odd speech but smirks nonetheless, dragging her to the dance floor. The mysterious man manipulates her body in ways even she did not know it capable of doing. His dark eyes continue to wreak ruin on her innards as he studies her ever so carefully. He is unconcerned by the moving bodies at their backs but Juvia is almost suffocating. She is lost in him and in the crowd, adrift in the low murmur the music has become to her roaring ears.

He is so cold whereas she feels inexplicably warm. Sparks ignite when their hips brush ever so gently. The nameless man's gaze is hungry—

and, despite the fear of becoming lost forever, she wishes he would consume her.

"Do you come here often?" he whispers into her ear from behind. His hands squeeze her hips gently, tall frame dwarfing her.

Juvia struggles to breathe. "No, it's Juvia's first time here."

"Are you here alone?"

"Juvia came with her friends…" she trails off when his lips brush the side of her neck. She is almost grateful that she chose to wear her hair in a carefully trussed-up bun. His searing lips ignite fires and infernos within her usually gloomy mind. Her whole body quakes with the sudden absence of the ever-present rain. The storms he creates become howling tornadoes, the tornadoes quickly swirling into all-consuming cyclones intent on tearing her apart.

Juvia falls into his embrace as her knees weaken. He effortlessly supports her weight, chuckling softly to himself. His lips move up to her own ever so slowly, and Juvia wishes time would freeze. She loves the hurt but she is fearful. How can this man cause such violent surges of warmth and cold simultaneously? His dark eyes are pools of uncharted stars and galaxies yet his lips are finite like the cold and empty void of space. They leave her skin snow-kissed but her chest is burning with each press of skin.

He is a sin—

but she is no innocent.

His lips take hers none too gently. She is frozen for a second as he kisses her slowly.

And then, they collide. The violence he creates unfreezes her body and she is twisting in his hold like a body of water in a winding stream, arms firmly wrapped around his neck. He takes her in hungrily and the coolness of his skin grounds her only temporarily. She is becoming lost in him like Hansel and Gretel lost their way in the deep woods. He is the cursed and misty woods and her, the stumbling idiot with no breadcrumbs to guide her back home. His teeth bite down on her lip and his tongue coaxes her open like a moonflower in bloom. The club seems much too bright for her suddenly; she almost wishes they were in irrevocable darkness. She doesn't want to watch herself stray from the path.

But, his touch is much too convincing. His hands trail up her exposed thighs, over her hips and to her waist where they circle it. She shakes in his embrace when he pulls her in closer. She loves the hurt, the cold, the storm.

Somehow, they leave the club together and he is pushing her up against her bedroom wall. She cries out as their hips echo the desperate and dangerous dance of their lips. Her hair has come loose and he yanks at the blue locks, the curls wrapping around his fingers like greedy pythons. He is still nameless as his hands map her body. Juvia doesn't mind though; storms are almost always nameless until they consume you deliciously.

She kisses him back with unhidden fervour, favouring the way his muscles coil under his skin like taut cables. His lips rain down upon hers like hail, peppering her with open-mouthed wonder. The burn is almost too much for her for it is not that of fires and infernos. This burn— _his_ burn— is harsh and cold against her soft skin; the numbing and prickling cold of snowstorms and blizzards.

He isn't warmth. But, then again, neither is she. She is rain and roiling dark storm clouds; the empty ache of a summer morning shower and the ferocity of winter downpour that falls for days.

He is unforgiving as he overwhelms her.

Just as she is about to let the ferocity of the violence he creates do away with her, he speaks: "Gray."

His voice is distant but powerful as her back inadvertently arches against his touch. "Gray?" she repeats in a broken whisper.

"My name," he says in response, dark eyes calculating her every move.

"It's very fitting," she says, meeting his gaze almost playfully. He smirks in turn and descends on her bare shoulders with his lips.

She is taken by him. Storms are only ever nameless until they consume you and she is not surprised. What could possibly be more fitting for this ultraviolence than _Gray_? Grey, the colour of her thoughts and the rain clouds that bare down on her. Grey, the flavour of his lips against hers; borderline heretic black arts and Morana-rituals _._

What a perfect storm he is, she thinks as his touch sends her over the edge of a cliff she is absolutely sure she can never return from. She cries out as their bare bodies collide one final time and he curses aloud, hands tightening around her body almost painfully. They collapse into each other and quiver like leaves in a storm. The hurricanes and cyclones are tearing her apart piece by piece. She is frozen under all that is him and time has finally acquiesced her wishes and stopped. Chests heaving, heads spinning and bodies tingling they begin their descent. She is burning from the numbing cold and his thoughts weigh heavy on him like the rain pelting the windows of her lightless apartment.

They collapse to her bed and sleep for hours. When she awakes, he is gone. Juvia doesn't mind; after all, she loves the hurt, the cold, the storm.

The rain is still heavy. But she is pleasantly numb.

 ** _._**

 ** _._**

 ** _._**

 ** _whisper in my ear,_ _i'm_ _the only one you're loving on_**  
 ** _take advantage of the moment, you're the only one that i want_**


	2. blessed with beauty and rage

_**notes:**_ I've got way too many plans for this to simply be a oneshot. _Please drop a review and tell me how you're liking this so far._

 **edited 30/11/2017**

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~Lyrics are from _**Pretty When You Cry**_ by **Lana Del Rey** ~

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 ** _all the pretty stars shine for you, my love_**  
 ** _am i that girl that you dream of?_**

 ** _._**

 ** _._**

 ** _._**

 _THE NEXT TIME THEY MEET, SHE IS MISERABLE AND HE APPEARS NO BETTER._

They both carry bags the size of ripe blackberries under their eyes and their cheeks are hollow. She almost doesn't recognise him. He orders their strongest coffee in an extra-large takeaway cup and she absentmindedly scribbles the order down. When she looks up to take the notes, she stiffens. Their eyes meet and it's like being back at the club all over again.

Gray's eyes are still cold and dark as he watches her, and Juvia's whole body quakes. Memories of that night swirl around her head — the burning cold, the storms, the rain, the hurt. She remembers his wicked lips scorching her skin, the slow burn he brought; the violence.

"Hey, you're that girl… Juvia, right?" his voice is still the same tenor, still drenched in silver and ill decisions.

Juvia doesn't trust her voice. She manages a stiff nod, eyes flicking all over his face. His hair has grown longer and she wants to rake her hands through the dark tresses. The memory of his fingers twirling and pulling at her own leave her quietly gasping for breath. She busies herself with the coffee grinder she had yet to prepare given the earliness. The crushing of the blades reminds her again of the night they shared — he ravished her wickedly, consumed every inch of her and left her pining for days on end.

The strong scent of espresso deeply contrasts the smell of musk and lust from when they first met. Gray is still watching her carefully from across the counter, except his words aren't honeyed and his eyes aren't hungry. Juvia feels empty; after all, she craves the hurt, the cold, the storm.

She has prepared his order much too quickly. Juvia wants time to slow. She hasn't spent long enough gazing upon his dangerous and dark features just yet. She stiffly hands him the paper cup and his receipt, and her heart clogs her throat when her trembling fingers brush his palm. A hint of a smirk plays on his lips but he turns around nonetheless, leaving the small coffee shop without a word.

As soon as his back has disappeared around the corner, she collapses to the floor. His chill has seeped into her bones and she can't get rid of it. Then again, she doesn't want it to leave either. His cold accompanies the storm in her heart perfectly, like a match made in the wispy clouds of heaven — a place neither of them will ever visit, let alone gaze upon.

He isn't warmth and she isn't innocent. They are both two damaged souls wandering aimlessly among the unharmed. Juvia doesn't know him, but she wants to share his burden. After all, her heart is unbreakable and his, unfixable.

When she looks out the window, she finds that it is raining — and Juvia isn't surprised at all.

 ** _. . . . ._**

She happens upon him weeks later. She almost wants to laugh at the irony but is unable to move a muscle due to his image. The sun has only just begun its ascent into the gloomy sky but there he is, smoking a cigarette in the rain under the cover of an empty cafe's awning. Gray's eyes find hers immediately and he visibly stiffens, freezing mid-puff.

Juvia is tempted to keep jogging.

He won't allow that.

Gray crosses the stretch of slick road and stops just before her, eyes drinking in the shoulders her sports bra leave bare. Juvia feels naked under his gaze.

"It's you again," he utters lowly, sunken eyes locking with her own.

Juvia wants to collapse, to flee. He is so visibly broken. His eyes, which had once seemed to hold uncharted stars and galaxies within them, are lifeless and steely.

"Juvia was just on her morning jog…" she stammers, arms wrapping around her middle self-consciously. The rain around them is drenching her hair and it falls around her face in stretched coils.

"In the rain?" Gray asks, nodding his head skyward. He throws his finished cigarette to the ground, roughly raking a hand through his hair.

"The rain always follows Juvia," she says in reply, holding out a palm. Droplets of water collect on her pale hand, before following the contours of her palm and falling to the harsh concrete. The rain is heavier now, thwarting them with its force. But, despite that, neither of them move.

"I figured," Gray reaches out a hand and twirls one of her blue locks around a finger. He studies it for a second as if that one coil of blue could answer all his questions. Juvia's knees are shaking. His touch, however brief, brings with it hail and blizzards.

"What makes Gray-sama say that?"

His eyes seek her own, his fingers stilling. They are silent as the rain roars around them.

"Because, every single time we've come in contact, it's raining."

Juvia holds her breath. The crisp rain is turning her fingers and lips blue but still, she does not move. She is afraid that, as soon as she turns her back, Gray will crumble under the storms and hurricanes the twist of his lips prophecy.

"And," he continues, stepping towards her, "your eyes are always so frantic. Do I scare you?"

She wants to whisper _no_. It is the opposite. She is drawn to him like a moth to a flame — like thunder to rain. Every part of him calls to her. She craves his hurt, his cold, his storms. She wants to feel the harshness of him against all her flaws.

"You should be," Gray speaks to her. "I'm not kind, or gentle. I do what the hell I want regardless of how it affects others."

He is pressing into her now, rain droplets running down his face. They catch on his sneering lips, collect on his cupid's bow. Juvia is transfixed; the sight of crystalline rain coating his devilish lips is a sight so contradicting. This man, who walks with his back to the sun and face fixed on the darkened sky before him, confuses Juvia until she aches to scream her frustrations. His voice is cold and his words bitter, but he still manages to find a way to crawl in her mind and nestle in amongst the chaos of her. She will never be rid of him — and she hopes she never is.

"Juvia can handle it," she says, her eyes locking with his.

She bravely takes a step forward, further pressing their bodies together. Thunder echoes in the distance, lightning striking across the rising sun. He watches her carefully, as he always does. Juvia is unconcerned; she stares up at him defiantly. She reaches a hand up and pushes his bangs out of his eyes, finger-combing the dark tresses away from his face. His face is much less haughty now — she can clearly see his sharp gaze, can even count the distance between his eyes.

"Don't say I didn't warn you," he mutters and takes her face in his cold hands. They sting her skin, grounding her thoughts. She blinks up at him, watching; waiting.

After seconds that feel like years, he is walking away from her and down the street. Juvia watches him as he does. With their backs to the rising sun, it appears as if he is striding into the unruly clouds like a fallen angel attempting to return to heaven. She doesn't hurt as she knows that somehow, somewhere, their paths will cross again.

And so she lays on the cold concrete and stares up at the falling sky, thinking of his lips and all their silver-lining lies.

 ** _._**

 ** _._**

 ** _._**

 ** _all those little times you said that i'm your girl  
you make me feel like your whole world  
_** _  
_ ** _  
_**


	3. linen and curls (tell me i'm your girl)

You guys really like this. I never thought **_ultraviolence_** would gain so much support in just the first couple of chapters. Thank you for all the support and keep the reviews coming; it makes my day whenever I get one.

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~Lyrics are from **_Fucked My Way To The Top_** by **Lana Del Rey~**

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/

 ** _lay me down tonight  
_** ** _in my linen and curls_**

 ** _._**

 ** _._**

 ** _._**

 _ON A CHILLY JULY MORNING, JUVIA WAKES TO THE BARREL OF A GUN PRESSING INTO THE SKIN BETWEEN HER EYES._

She doesn't panic — after all, the dark and harsh gaze staring at her from over the sight is familiar. She bravely throws the covers off and slaps the gun away, launching herself at the man. They fall to her floor and she straddles him, eyes squinting in the darkness to make out his figure.

His skin is still cold, except a harsh and jagged black tattoo covers the entire right side of his body, an inky stain against the pallor of him. Juvia follows the mark to his face, where it crawls up to his eyes. He has kept his hair in the style she combed it into all those months ago in the rain, when she decided she preferred his smouldering gaze levelled on her and not peeking through silky strands of midnight blue.

"What is Gray-sama doing here?" she demands.

Gray smirks and rolls over her, staring down at her between the cage of his arms. "I was right," he says in reply.

"Right about what?" Juvia says and attempts to move from under his hold. Gray growls a warning, eyes glinting in the darkness. Immediately, she freezes.

"You know what I'm talking about," he replies and pulls his gun towards him, once again pressing it to her skull.

Juvia stares at him over the sight, watching him steadily; she is not scared of him or his gun or his blizzards.

"It took a while, but I finally figured you out… _Pale Lady_."

She stiffens at the name, eyes squeezing shut tightly. That name brings with it memories she has locked away behind bars in her heart. The butt of the gun stings her skin — much like Gray's hands upon her arms. She is putty in his hands. He plays her mercilessly, bends and deforms her until she gasps for breath.

"So this is where Jose's lovely little rain woman found herself, huh?" Gray chuckles darkly, fiddling with the trigger of his Desert Eagle.

"Don't say that name," she whispers, gaze steady on his own.

"You mean, Jose? Or do you not want to hear your old ones?"

"Juvia is no longer the Pale Lady. She is not Jose's rain woman," she says with a voice dripping with steel.

A single strand of dark hair falls over Gray's eyes as he leans forward, wrapping an unforgiving hand around her throat. "You and I both know that Jose isn't one to let his bitches run loose for too long."

His voice is as cutting as broken glass in the dark — it slides over her skin in trails of garnet, assaults her relentlessly. She flinches against his hold and wishes for the first time that his cold would leave her.

"Cat got your tongue?" he teases when she is silent for a moment too long.

Her voice is a broken whisper. "Juvia isn't Jose's bitch. Juvia is nothing to Jose."

Gray's fingers tighten minutely around her throat, trails a line with the gun down the column of her throat towards her chest. She shivers at the sensation — he is straddling her and she is gasping for breath as he tucks the gun safely between her breasts. Juvia's heart stutters wildly in her chest like a summer thunderstorm. Gray is soundless as he leans his head on her shoulder and nips at her collarbone. Juvia, however, is unable to keep the words from spilling forth:

"Why is Gray-sama here? Why is Gray-sama touching Juvia like this?"

He stills almost immediately, the lips at the hollow of her throat hovering above the skin enticingly. His cool breath caresses her when he exhales loudly. "Just shut up," he responds dully.

Juvia watches him closely. His glaring eyes seem to soak up all the darkness in her small bedroom and hold it there so that when he gazes upon her, she feels she is being consumed by an empty void. There is no warmth, no kindness in his expression — but, Juvia doesn't mind. She has always craved the hurt, the cold, the storm.

Without warning, he breaks the heavy silence. "I made it into Avatar."

Juvia's throat hitches at the statement. "Gray-sama is… why?"

He barks out an empty laugh and releases his hold on her throat, using the hand to tug at her hair absentmindedly. "I guess Jose liked my work. Who would've guessed, Gray the fuck-up Fullbuster in one of Phantom Lord's most infamous hitmen teams. Guess I'm good for something after all."

Juvia remains silent, watching the man with a curious gaze. She always knew he was dangerous, but for him to be part of Avatar? She is scared— irrevocably and utterly scared for the man above her. He is already much too damaged, his heart unfixable.

"What's got you so worried, Pale Lady?" he utters, cool fingers mapping the freckles along her bared ribs.

"Don't call Juvia that," she says weakly, pulling his face towards hers. Their eyes lock, and Juvia is entranced.

Gray makes the first move. His lips crash to hers with bruising force and he steals the air from her lungs. Juvia kisses him back with as much fervour, the rain outside falling with the ferocity of Perun's wrath. Gray's hands trail to her hips and Juvia's run over his bare chest. He is a ravaging blizzard, she a devastation. His devilish lips and wicked hands leave her very soul numb from the chill he brings.

She hasn't forgotten the gun wedged in her cleavage. As their tongues battle a predated war, she grasps the Desert Eagle in one hand and rakes her nails down his back with the other. Juvia presses the gun to his forehead — Gray freezes not for the first time.

"Conniving little rain woman, aren't you?" he asks with a smirk and presses electric kisses to her chest.

"Juvia thinks Gray-sama needs to be more aware of his surroundings, especially now that he is in Avatar," she says.

"You're right," he steals another brief kiss from her, his lips pressing against hers demandingly. "It's the pretty ones you gotta look out for."

Juvia's back arches as he runs his hands over the curves of her waist and wide hips. The gun lays forgotten beside them as he ravishes her with his lips — the very lips Juvia believed she would never feel again. She has almost convinced herself that she is dreaming, but the harsh bite on her shoulder reminds her otherwise. She squirms in his hold, hitched breath leaving her swollen lips in gasps.

Suddenly, he tears himself away from her and stands. Juvia lays sprawled on the floor, watching him with wide eyes. Gray smirks at her figure with his arms crossed over his chest. The inky tattoo stands out in the dark room — appears much bigger than she originally thought. However, Juvia's eyes fall immediately to the white symbol tattooed amongst the black marks. The Avatar symbol sits proudly upon the skin opposite his heart — and, upon closer inspection, seems to have been placed directly over an older tattoo. Juvia opens her mouth to ask but stops when Gray yanks her face up to meet his gaze.

"You said you could handle it. You still sure about that?" his voice mocks her, his face stoic.

"Yes."

Gray's gaze darkens further and he scowls. "Be sure to remember that I warned you."

His sharp tongue and carefully cool words do not sway her — instead, they push her forwards and into his arms. She clutches him tightly, as if he were seconds away from shattering. Gray pulls her off him with an indignant scoff.

"You sure are an oddball," he mutters as he walks to her front door.

Juvia stoops to pick up the Desert Eagle and chases after him, his name on the tip of her tongue. "Gray-sama, you forgot your gun!"

"Keep it as a reminder," he says, stepping out her front door.

"A reminder of what?" she calls to his back, skin aching with the absence of his touch.

He turns around to lock gazes with her. His eyes hold her rooted in her spot and leave her struggling for breath.

"It's a reminder of what you've got yourself into, and what could happen if you fuck up."

A second later, he is all but gone except for the remnants of his touch growing cold upon her heated skin. The phantom of him lingers in the tall shadows of her studio apartment, sway along to her racing heart.

They lack the harshness of his taste.

 ** _._**

 ** _._**

 ** _._**

 ** _lay me down tonight in my diamonds and pearls tell me something like I'm your favourite girl_**


	4. slang from the gutter

I recently posted a oneshot called _**darling, the stars don't fall for you** _ that I think is pretty damn fucking good. It's written in the same style as _**ultraviolence** _ but deals with all the ugliness that is bachana.

 **edited 30/11/2017**

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~Lyrics are from **_Five Degrees_** by **Lil Peep (prod. Haardtek)** ~

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 ** _worry about yourself, baby, i'll be good  
i just wanna die in peace tonight_**

 ** _._**

 ** _._**

 ** _._**

 _THE MOON HAS ONLY JUST RISEN WHEN THE GUNSHOTS BEGIN._

Gray scowls and rips the bloody coat from his body, moving quickly to duck behind a parked van. The rest of Avatar are scattered throughout the small street — he briefly spots Buraiya and Jerome firing shots from the alley Mary originally planned for them to enter through.

He surveys the area again, searching for any more rogue thugs. Goumon ploughs through a group to his right with D-6, and Gray can faintly hear Abel's manic laugh above him — damn jester and his crazy _kill from above_ tactics.

"Any word from Arlock?" he shouts over the cacophony, only half expecting a reply.

"None so far! Jose says we have ten more minutes to eliminate the target otherwise he'll send Element Four in," Mary yells back, and he curses.

"Who the fuck even agreed to this shit?"

Jerome executes a beefy man with a shotgun before replying. "I believe that was me. Do you have an issue with that, Fullbuster?"

"How the hell did you think we could take on a whole gang and kill the leader, within a fucking hour?" Gray scowls and quickly unsheathes the spare gun in his shoulder holster.

"Just get in there and do your job, Fullbuster. You have ten minutes."

"Make it count!" Buraiya adds with a twisted grin.

With an uttered curse he takes in a breath and runs through the fray, finger resting on the trigger of his gun. The street is dark and covered in bullet shells and soaked with blood— a sight he is more than used to seeing. An open second story window grants him access to the gang base and he slips through, dropping to a crouch on the grimy floor.

The halls are littered with old newspaper clippings and dust, cobwebs hanging from the ceiling like decorative garlands. Gray opens the first door and sweeps the room with his gun, mouth set in a disgusted grimace. The room smells of rot and alcohol, the sheets covering the two twin beds stained with a questionable substance. He doesn't risk closing the door and turns to the next, footsteps light and quick.

This room contains two ruffians playing a game of cards, and like a summer storm, he sweeps in and silently dispatches them. The two bodies fall to the ground with a dull thump but he is already opening the last door. A narrow staircase leads down to the murky depths of what he can only assume to be the first floor.

His feet barely skim the stairs as he makes his way down the steel steps, sidestepping beer bottles and dried pools of blood. The first floor seems less like a common area and more like a jail cell; the walls have been stripped of all shelves and plasterboard, leaving the dull brick naked. The floor is made of large grates that creak with the ache of rusted iron, each of his steps causing the metal to groan beneath his weight.

Gray grasps his gun tighter and pulls a knife from the sheath strapped to his calf, ears tuned carefully to his surroundings. Crossing the gun over his knife-arm, he creeps through the large room. A stereo is playing the local radio station from the corner, a game of poker laying untouched on one of the square tables.

The target sits obliviously at the largest table, counting hundred-dollar bills with his jewelled fingers. Gray wastes no time in aiming his gun at the back of the man's head, finger moving to squeeze the trigger.

"I wouldn't if I were you," a gravelly voice says. The man at the table stands and meets Gray's eyes, whose finger on the trigger stills.

"You know why I'm here," Gray states in reply, glaring at his target.

"Gray Fullbuster, son of the deceased Silver Fullbuster," the man is unconcerned by the gun pointed at him, and he begins to pace. "He was a good man, that Silver. Best agent I ever came across."

"Is there a point to what you're saying? I'm going to kill you either way," Gray rolls his eyes toward the ceiling and clucks his tongue impatiently.

The target meets his glare with an amused chuckle. "Sorry son, but I can't afford to die today."

And suddenly, Gray is sent tumbling to the metal floor with a gun pressed to his neck. Acting instinctively, Gray pounds his leg into his attacker's side and swats the gun away from him. The weapon bounces across the grates and becomes wedged between the brick wall and a missing floor panel. Gray wrestles with the thug pinning him down, fists flying and knee pounding into ribs.

Gray briefly catches a glimpse of blue hair, but he is already plunging his knife into the man's neck. Warm, thick blood trickles down his arm and he scowls at the stain.

"As expected of Avatar. It's a shame; I quite liked that boy."

"That wasn't necessary," Gray all but growls at the older man, who simply waves a sparkling hand.

"Now, where were we?" the man asks, grinning wide.

Gray aims his gun at the man again, finger wrapped securely around the trigger. "Somewhere around here."

He shoots.

 _ **. . . . .**_

"The next time you want Avatar to take on something like that, you do it by your fucking self, Arlock."

The frail man chuckles a deep laugh, pointing his cane at Gray. "You handled it well, young man. I'm sure the pay will appease any further complaints you may have."

He rolls his eyes and crosses his arms across his chest, muscles tensing under the needle digging into the skin of his back.

"Hold still," Mary chides, placing a gloved hand on his shoulder.

Arlock clicks his tongue in distaste, eyes scanning over the buzzing machine in Mary's hand. "I don't know why you even bother with that ghastly tattoo."

Gray ignores the old man, lost in the darkness behind his closed lids. He isn't given the luxury of sleep, for the marble doors of the Avatar manor slam open not a second later.

"You had me worried there, Avatar," an all-too-familiar voice drawls, and he resists the urge to groan.

"I can assure you, Jose, that we had everything under control. You needn't worry yourself over us," Jerome drawls pompously, and Gray wants to shoot the fucker— they are _hitmen_ , for fuck's sake; not princes twirling bejewelled guns from their gloved fingertips.

Jose chuckles and walks towards Arlock, exchanging a few brief words. Gray watches carefully, waiting for their boss to leave them the hell alone — and to his utter disbelief, Jose walks towards the table he is seated at.

"Just the person I've been looking for," Jose chuckles and stands over him, regarding him with a look that makes his skin crawl.

"Jose," he nods a welcome, eyes downcast.

The Phantom Lord leader smiles a wide smile that appears more reminiscent of a grimace. "Tell me, how's my little rain woman these days?"

Gray stills, bated breath hitching only slightly. His little pale lady crosses his mind for what is possibly the hundredth time—

(and just that one realisation is enough to shock him still).

He doesn't know what it is that keeps him drawn to her — he'd like to say it is the way her eyes haze over and her mouth gapes when he touches her because just that one gesture is enough to make him want to _consume_ her. She is the woman who managed to sneak past all his wards and nestle in with the ghosts of his past. No longer is she a mere plaything but an _addiction,_ one that will surely give him trouble he doesn't need.

Jose watches him with an expectant smirk, one that hints to dark schemes and hidden plans. It is there that Gray makes his choice — he will not share Juvia with anyone. For however long as possible, he will keep her as his little secret. After all, he is just like her and her strange weather.

"I've got no idea what you're talking about, sir."

 _ **.**_

 _ **.**_

 _ **.**_

 ** _you can see it in my face so i wear my hood  
feeling like it's five degrees tonight_**


	5. loving you forever can't be wrong

Gruvia onehsot coming your way soon ( _TRY AND GUESS THE THEME; IT'S WRITTEN IN THIS CHAPTER SOMEWHERE!)_

 **edited 30/11/2017**

* * *

~Lyrics are from **_Without You_** by Lana Del Rey~

* * *

 _/_

 ** _i can be your china doll  
_** ** _if you want to see me fall_**

 ** _._**

 ** _._**

 ** _._**

 _HE IS WAITING IN HER SMALL LIVING ROOM WHEN SHE ARRIVES HOME, TWIRLING A RUBY-KISSED CIGARETTE BETWEEN HIS FINGERS._

She jumps out of fright, heart racing at the sight of him. Gray chuckles lowly in his throat and the sound makes her skin buzz and hum with anticipation.

"Gray-sama!" she chokes out, hand clutching at her clogged throat.

He quirks a brow but remains silent, regarding her with mild interest. In the back of her mind, she realises that to him she is merely an odd conundrum, a puzzling mystery spread out before him in a Petri dish. She is a strange combination of rainstorms and thunder clouds that he, for reasons unbeknownst to either of them, feels compelled to soothe. His fingers work on straightening out the dents and hollows of her mind — but all he ever does is fill those yawning and gaping chasms with glass shards and snowfall.

"So, rain woman," he says in that very same voice she encountered when she first met him, and Juvia doesn't like it, not one bit.

"Don't call Juvia that," she bravely stutters in the silence.

Gray raises one dark brow at her, eyes alight with mischief — and it is then that she realises that something is _very wrong_.

"Oh?" his eyes are blank as he says the word, but his voice is teasing; as if she is a mere child and he the chastising master.

"Juvia has told Gray-sama," she continues. "She does not go by that name anymore."

He clucks his tongue and scoffs, pointedly nodding his head at the window behind her as if that one small gleam of the outside world could prove his point — and it does. Raindrops collect on the pane of glass and plummet to the ground far below them. Juvia can only stare at the rain that grows heavier and louder by each suffocating moment.

She is still able to hear him over the roar of it. He rises from the armchair with a heavy sigh and his light footsteps move towards her bedroom. Juvia follows him like a lost puppy, eyes dull but heart hopeful.

When she enters the bedroom that began all of this, she finds him sprawled across her neat bed with his arms crossed behind his head. He has rid himself of his shirt and Juvia struggles to breathe. Bloody bandages wrap around his torso, the pale skin a spectrum of black and blue. She rushes to his side, eyes wide and frantic.

"Gray-sama! What happened?"

He waves a lazy hand in dismissal, gaze focused on the rain outside her bedroom window. "It's nothing serious," he defends, but Juvia is already by his side and inspecting the scarlet-stained bandages.

"Were you shot?"

He nods once, barely even wincing when she pulls the bandages away from his bruised skin to reveal a gory mess of flesh and blood. Juvia inspects the wound carefully, grimacing when Gray reveals that he gouged the bullet out with his fingers and a tactical knife.

"It's not a big deal," he slurs the words like an infant and Juvia leans across his body to watch his unseeing eyes. His face is hot and clammy, gaze feverish.

"Gray-sama, you've lost a lot of blood," she mutters, wiping at the sweat building on his brow with his discarded shirt.

"I'm _fine_ ," he stresses the word, but Juvia knows he won't last long — not without help.

Wordlessly, she scrambles through her bedroom door to her dingy little bathroom, ripping open cupboards and doors. She is a tornado of mumbled curses and clenched teeth in her need to save him, to help him — the man that left her soul bare and old wounds fresh but she loves it, loves _him_.

She returns to his side armed with a first aid kit and towels. "Sit up for a second, please," she demands kindly, pushing a towel beneath his body and gently guiding him back down.

Gray weakly pushes at her hands as she dabs at the open wound with disinfectant and clenches his teeth when she prods at it. Juvia sends him an apologetic look as she begins to thread the needle through his pale skin, sewing the mangled wound closed. He makes no sound at all, but his gaze never leaves her hunched shoulders and furrowed brow. Juvia feels naked — exposed under his watchful gaze.

She ties off the thread and cuts it away, inspecting the careful stitches keeping the blood inside his body. They are small and precise, exactly as she was taught in Phantom by Jose himself. The memories tug at her mind but Juvia pushes them away firmly, filling it instead with the bite of freshly fallen snow and Gray's expressionless gaze.

"You didn't have to," he murmurs coolly, trailing bloody fingers over the clean stitches.

Juvia slaps his hand away and begins wrapping fresh gauze around his torso, eyes seeking his own. "You mustn't wet the stitches or touch them with unclean hands. It can lead to an infection in the blood and Juvia isn't sure how to manage that."

Gray nods absentmindedly and waves away her concerned hands, settling amongst her pillows and blankets. Juvia can only sit and stare at him as his eyes droop shut and she smiles fondly, taking in the way his features soften with a greedy hunger.

Her world crashes when his chest stops moving.

"Gray-sama?" she asks tentatively, reaching out a searching hand to rest on the cool skin of his bicep.

He doesn't say a word or even twitch a finger. He remains still, cold, unresponsive.

"Gray-sama, wake up!" Juvia screams and she is halfway considering jumping out her window to fall like a raindrop to the cement.

Gray cannot be gone, he can't possibly leave her. The thought alone pains her to the point where she is desperate for salvation. Everything is crashing and falling away around her and Juvia can only sit and stare. She is absolutely and painfully _nothing_ without her Gray-sama.

She counts to five slowly and inches closer, salty tears leaving a trail across his skin. They follow the lines of his stomach and collect in the swells of his abdominals. His chest remains still, skin cool — and then his eyes flutter open tiredly.

"Juvia?" he mutters, and his hand reaches out to grab her own. Her heart stops beating when he pulls her closer to his side and Juvia is crying again with anguished howls that rival the roar of the rain outside.

"Juvia thought you were dead! Gray-sama wasn't breathing! You were dead!"

She can feel him sigh heavily beside her. "As if a stupid little bullet would make me go down, you crazy idiot."

"You weren't breathing!" she wails into his chest and curls her warm body around his.

Juvia isn't sure if it is the painkillers or his exhaustion, but for some entirely ridiculous reason his arm drapes over her shoulders and pulls her into his chest. She breathes into his skin and traces the black lines of his tattoos, relishing the small moment of peace — because she knows that as soon as she wakes he will be gone, and his touch will have vanished on the breeze like a whisper.

"I was breathing," he says into her hair, breath unsettling the fine strands.

"Juvia didn't see your chest moving."

She knows he is rolling his eyes and scowling at the ceiling. "Calm down before you explode."

But, all she can utter is _Gray Gray Gray Gray_. She cannot possibly calm down. There are cyclones and earthquakes tearing her heart to shreds and she can hardly even breathe, much less think one single cohesive thought. Gray's strong arm tightens around her shoulders, and his feverish lips plant a small kiss on the bare skin of her shoulder.

"What do you even see in me?" he asks himself quietly.

Juvia knows this is wrong. He has lost too much blood and her nerves are too high-strung. She should not answer. No, she should leave him be and call the hospital because there are stitches holding the blood inside his body and her hands are coated with the scarlet substance.

The words leave her lips before she can stop them: "Juvia loves the cold, the hurt, the storm. Gray-sama can provide them."

He is silent, as he always is. His chest pressing into her back gives her all the answers she knows he can never give — he is fleeting, distant, as temporary as the small smile on his lips.

"Gray-sama does not have to say anything, for Juvia already knows," she says in the silence, hands resting upon his own.

He sighs a breath into the back of her neck and she feels his eyelashes flutter closed against her skin. She stays awake for hours even after his breathing evens out and the sun sets, eyes refusing to close. She watches and listens to his breathing, reassuring her torn heart that Gray is very much alive and _with her_. He is safe and held tightly in her embrace — where he very much belongs.

Juvia falls asleep just as the sun rises and Gray's arms have grown slack around her. When she wakes to the bright afternoon sun, the space behind her on the mattress is cold and perfectly made. There is nothing of him left save for a cigarette butt and bloodied bandages on her bedroom floor.

Juvia knows he will be back. Until then, she sits and stares and compares the world to his hands.

 ** _._**

 ** _._**

 ** _._**

 ** _i'm nothing without you_**


	6. i only love it when you touch me

I'm back, bitches.

Thanks for all the reviews last chapter—they are literally the only thing other than Abel that fuelled this chapter.

 **edited 30/11/2017**

* * *

~Lyrics are from **_The Hills_** by **The Weekend** ~

* * *

/

 ** _i only call you when it's half past five  
_** ** _the only time that i'll be by your side_**

 ** _._**

 ** _._**

 ** _._**

 _SHE IS SURE THAT SHE IS DREAMING._

His hands — the very same hands that took her to places she had never been before and gave her a such a high that it lasted for days — are running down the length of her thighs. The room is cloaked in darkness, blinds drawn closed to hide their pulsing bodies from the world. He is as unforgiving as their first time together

(and she loves it).

Juvia croons against his touch, pushing as close to him as possible. His cool hands burn her skin even through her work uniform, the violence he brings turning her into a woman worthy of his attention. She gasps and trembles and shivers in his hold, lips pressing against his desperately.

"I forgot how fucking crazy you can be," he hisses into her neck and Juvia swears that his breath hitches against her skin.

"Gray-sama should visit Juvia more often then, so he doesn't forget," she bites his lip ferociously, impatient and needy.

Gray smirks and pushes her back against the wall, and she is without clothes in seconds. His eyes take her in slowly, calculative; they connect the lines of her collarbones and navigate the curves of her hips. The storms and hurricanes try and ravish her until she is _nothing_ but Juvia has learnt — she can control the rain and thunder.

She cannot, however, control the trauma he brings.

His touch threatens to take her away in a swirl of harsh sneers and lovebitten lips — straight to a world where nothing hurts and everything is calm and still. Juvia will not let it.

She craves the hurt, the cold, the storm.

She wants his violence. Too much of her life has been spent frozen still in place and suspended in place; she wants to _feel_. She wants the hurt his belittling gaze forces upon her heart, the sting his razor-sharp words inflict. He is unforgiving and careless, rash and aggressive. Gray's hands grab her flesh and his lips sink into her skin as if he is desperate to make her his.

"Don't get used to this," he growls into her ear. His hands though contradict everything — they touch her and map her skin as if they are afraid she will forget

(as if she could, he is everything and anything, her Gray-sama).

Juvia kisses him greedily, swallowing the words he hoped would deter her. They are nothing but heady breathing and scorching lips that convey what the silence between them won't — he is a deep, dark mystery and she the clueless wanderer in a forest full of wolves. She runs her hands down the rough planes of his chest and stomach, thighs squeezing his hips as they collide. He pushes and she pulls against the heavy tension burning and building between them.

She _wants_ this, wants _him_.

Gray wants her to understand just how fleeting he is.

The scar on his hip serves as a reminder of just how _temporary_ he is. Whereas she lives and breathes, he is forever walking a tightrope without a safety net to cradle him should he fall. One bullet, one blade, and he will be forever gone as if he had never existed. She hates it, hates him for it because whereas he thinks he will be leaving behind _nothing_ , she will forever be there in his shadow.

She mustn't get too close—

but she is too far gone now.

Her greedy lips and searching hands are a testament to that. She leaves scratches and kisses all over his pale skin in an attempt to cement her presence upon him. He is hers and _only_ hers — which is a privilege she will forever be honoured to bear.

"Stop being so fucking possessive," his voice is strained, but his hips are a force to be reckoned with.

"Juvia cannot help it," she cannot finish her thought, for a heavy scream leaves her lips as his hands run over the skin of her inner thighs.

"You think aloud whenever I fuck you. You're one crazy bitch—you know that, right?"

Juvia grins and kisses him with unhidden fervour. "You can say whatever you want because nothing will scare Juvia away. You're wasting your breath, Gray-sama."

Gray chuckles and flips her underneath him, arms caging her inside his hold. She watches him with a heady gaze and bruised lips — his smirk and smouldering dark eyes freeze the air in her lungs. She is overwhelmed by his powerful presence. He commands the room and everything in it, including her.

"Is that so? How about when I do this?"

Gray's lips descend upon her breast and bite at the soft flesh with uncontained hostility. Juvia gasps and wraps her legs around his waist, pulling him as close as possible. Her hands become tangled in his dark hair, fingers brushing the strands away from his face. The man watching her from above is a sinful delight, one she wishes she can forever indulge in.

"You make it so hard to hate you when you look at me like that," he scowls and pulls her chin towards him none too gently.

His lips are upon hers and engulfing her, seeking an answer she isn't sure she can give. Burning trails of absolute cold follow his tongue as it battles her own.

"Like what?" she gasps when he finally pulls back.

Gray chuckles and tugs at a lock of damp cerulean. "Like I'm some fucked up God."

Juvia holds his stare, eyes burning with determination. "To Juvia, you are."

They are still and silent, post-bliss buzzing. After what feels like centuries, his hands return to her hips and he is fucking her like it is the last time they will ever be together like this. Juvia tugs at his hair and cries out to the cold air, hips colliding with his. That dangerous chill has rooted itself in her very centre — but Juvia loves it. After all, she has waited far too long to feel this way again.

After he makes sure that they are both satisfied, Gray pulls the sheets over her teeth-marked body. "I'll never understand," he says to her closed eyes, fingers stroking her blushed cheek absentmindedly.

"Gray-sama doesn't have to understand. Juvia does, shouldn't that be enough?"

He blows a frustrated breath through his nose, lips set in a scowl. "Of course that isn't enough. Why the fuck are you so obsessed with me? Why am I so damn obsessed with you?"

Juvia opens one tired eye, gaze unfocused but alight. "It's because Gray-sama loves his Juvia."

Gray rolls his eyes and clucks his tongue. "You wish," he mutters, shooting her a glare as if the very idea is laughable.

She smiles and latches onto his torso, burying her face into his bare chest. Gray utters a curse but allows her to stay—

(and she swears that she feels his fingers strumming her bare back to the rhythm of the falling rain).

When she eventually falls asleep, she is smiling into his skin despite the pain of knowing he will be gone in the morning.

(Not that she minds—she craves the hurt, the cold, the storm).

 ** _._**

 ** _._**

 ** _._**

 ** _i only call you when it's half past five  
the only time i'd ever call you mine_**


	7. on the flipside i could catch you again

Thank you for all the amazing reviews x

 **edited 1/12/2017**

* * *

~Lyrics are from **_Flipside_** by **Lana Del Rey**

* * *

 _/_

 ** _you don't wanna break me down  
_** ** _you don't wanna say goodbye_**

 ** _._**

 ** _._**

 ** _._**

 _HE IS IN A BLACK '73 MASERATI PARKED OUTSIDE HER APARTMENT IN THE EARLY HOURS OF THE MORNING._

She stops beneath the flickering glow of a street light and watches him intently, wiping the raindrops from her eyes. She can hardly see him in the car — the tint on the windows is dark enough to blot out any light, but the glow of the cigarette dangling from his lips illuminates his sneer well enough.

The tattoos have stretched further up his shoulder since the last time she saw him pressing in on her from all sides. The memories tempt wicked sensations from her, but Juvia pushes the desires down in favour of observing him. His stormy, dark eyes take in the empty streets and colourless sky. His face is as cool as ever but she can see the turmoil lurking beneath — the crease of his brow, the strain to keep his fists relaxed clearly depicted in the set of his jaw.

(She will never admit aloud that she _loves_ him when he is like this—when he is rippling with barely contained rage and violence).

The wind howls desperately and draws his attention to the world outside his car once again, and he nods when he spots her leaning against a lamp post. He flickers the headlights once and inclines his head to the empty seat beside him. She rushes over like an excited puppy, barely remembering to take off her drenched jacket before entering the car. The cabin smells like him and reflects his personality well — the seats are all black leather and carefully stitched lines. Juvia sinks into the plush seat, sighing in content when Gray adjusts the heater to fan across her pale face.

"What the fuck were you doing, just standing there?" he growls around the cigarette, twisting his head to stare at her fully.

She trembles under his gaze. "Juvia likes walking in the rain," she stammers.

"At two in the morning?" Gray raises one bemused brow and sighs, rubbing his forehead. "You're gonna be the death of me. Not some bullet or pill—just you."

"What was Gray-sama doing outside Juvia's house?" she asks when the rain droplets stop falling from the ends of her hair.

He doesn't answer. Instead, he shifts the car into first gear and begins to drive away from the safety of her home, and Juvia watches the world outside her window slowly morph into unfamiliar territory.

She isn't scared — she trusts her Gray-sama more than anyone in the entire world. He would never hurt her

(at least, she hopes — and the very thought sickens her).

"What's my crazy pale lady thinking of now?"

Juvia's breath hitches in her throat, and she twists around to stare at him with wide eyes. "Juvia is _Gray-sama's?_ "

Gray chuckles, opening her window up a crack. The salty scent of the ocean overwhelms her rioting senses, and she is awash in memories of her past — _Juvia of the Deep Sea, Rainwoman, Pale Lady Pale Lady Gray-sama's Pale Lady_. "Nah," he finally says. "Just wanted to see what you'd do."

Her breath leaves all at once and her heart stutters to a stop. "Gray-sama was only joking?"

"You'll never belong to me because that means I would belong to you."

His voice is bitter and harsh, and Juvia has to turn her face away from his stony eyes. "Juvia wouldn't mind… having Gray-sama as hers, that is."

"Not going to happen."

Gray parks the car in front of the dark and dead sea, and she watches the waves break against the wall separating them from the overwhelming expanse of nothingness. There are no lights, save for the distant lightning dancing across the horizon. She wants to reach across the gear stick and run her fingers over his bandaged knuckles, to ask him if he is okay and kiss the bruises away.

She knows he will pull away.

(she is too far gone).

His skin is rough and cool, and Juvia lays her palm over his wounded knuckles to hide them from the world. He is hurt, he is fragile — the world is not allowed to see her Gray-sama like this. She hasn't finished fixing him. He is still incomplete.

"You're gonna miss the storm," he says lowly, but Juvia is not seeing or hearing _anything_.

She can only feel.

(and she is sure she is dreaming).

Gray's clenched fist unfolds and his fingers graze over her wrist, where the bruises have never quite gone away. His touch is full of sorry but Juvia doesn't mind, does not care at all. There is only her, the ocean, and her Gray-sama — who hasn't pulled away from her gentle protection.

The grey waves continue to break against the rocks, and the sea lightens to reflect the dim sunset. The rain is pushing and pulling against all sides — it falls into the ocean, hides the moon, drowns them. But Juvia is happy. She craves the hurt, the cold, the storm.

His next words coat the world in cutting ice and chill her very bones.

"I'm going away for a while."

"What?" she stutters through a rebellious throat thickened by the tears that won't fall.

"Jose is sending Avatar away on some job halfway across the country. I don't know the specifics, or when I'll be back. I'm leaving tomorrow."

All her fears are coming true. She grabs his hand as if that one small action would tether him to her heart so he will never leave. She is _nothing_ without him. The hurricanes and storms have returned with a reckless force that tears her fragile heart to shreds. He is silent, and his hand slowly slips away from hers

(she isn't _ready_ , he _can't_ leave her now).

"Gray-sama, _please_. Juvia will do anything! Just please, don't leave. _Please_!"

"It's out of your hands," he says, and his voice is _dead_. The torrential rain blankets them in its chill and hides her tears when they finally fall.

"Please, Gray-sama."

The car starts up again. They are speeding in the rain, tires struggling on the wet ground. He continues on his road of destruction, knuckles black and blue and bone-white where he grips the steering wheel. He does not look at her, does not offer any comfort.

(she still loves him — _god,_ does she love him).

She is still crying into her hands, shoulders trembling with the absolute violence of her despair. He can't be leaving. This is all a dream. She will wake up to his stale scent and rumpled sheets, and the phantom bruises will ache, glow ethereally in the pale winter sunlight.

"No," she whispers brokenly when he stops on the street outside her house. "Gray-sama, no, _please_."

"Get out."

She is trembling and filled with hurt — everything aches, even her collapsing lungs. "Juvia is nothing without Gray-sama. Please don't leave!"

His emotionless gaze does not meet hers. He watches the street in front of them with steely resolve. "I told you not to get too close. I warned you."

"Juvia cannot help it!"

"Go."

" _Don't leave me!_ "

He breaks. "For fuck's sakes! Stop making this harder than it should be! Just fucking go already!"

The door slams shut, and he is speeding away

(away from her, away from her reckless love, away from her stuttering heart and tear-filled eyes).

She collapses to the cold ground and cries to the sunless sky, beating her hands against the cement. The ever-present rain offers her its shelter, but she pushes it away. She doesn't want the rain. She wants to be _numb_ , she wants to freeze time.

But, all there ever is (and all there ever was) will be the rain—

 _drip… drip… drop… Juvia's heart must stop…_

(and all

she f

eel

s i

s)

 _violence_

 ** _._**

 ** _._**

 ** _._**

 ** _you don't wanna turn around  
_** ** _you don't wanna make me cry_**


	8. interlude

Short chapter but it's better than nothing. Man, I fucking love you guys.

 **edited 1/12/2017**

* * *

~Lyrics are from _**The Blackest Day**_ by **Lana Del Rey**.

* * *

/

 ** _ever since my baby went away_**  
 ** _it's been the blackest day_**

 ** _._**

 ** _._**

 ** _._**

 _HE FINDS HER TRYING TO DROWN HERSELF IN THE BATHTUB_

"Rain Woman," he sneers, and she makes out the haughty face from under the water.

It is not Gray. It is never Gray. Gray is _gone._

His disgusting hands grab her arms and pull her from the water's desperate clutch, and she splutters as stale air fills her burning lungs. Jose regards her with a sick fascination, vile eyes taking in her naked flesh and trembling shoulders.

Juvia wraps her arms around her chest and turns away from his gaze. "How did you find Juvia?"

"Is that any way to treat your superior?" he grabs her shoulder, bruises the skin.

"Jose is not Juvia's superior. Jose is nothing to Juvia."

(She wishes that were true. As long as she lives and breathes, she will forever be Jose's and not Gray's.)

"You _will_ cooperate," he hisses into her ear, lips brushing the skin. She shivers in disgust and pulls against his scathing hold, but he is too firm and she weak from so many days of withering.

"No," she whimpers.

Jose barks a laugh and presses his fingers into her skull, as if he wants to dig through the flesh and scramble her mind until she resembles the woman who killed mercilessly—

(not the woman who drowns herself in Arctic seas just to _feel_.)

"You do as I say, otherwise I'll put a bullet through your _Gray-sama_ ' _s_ head. Are we clear?"

She freezes.

 _No_.

Not Gray.

She is _nothing_ without her Gray-sama.

"Anything but that! Juvia will do what you say, she swears!"

Jose chuckles darkly, toying with a damp strand of blue hair. She shudders but does not pull away; she must _obey_. Gray's wicked touch flashes behind her closed eyes, the barely-there twist of his lips, his fingers smoothing through her hair as if she held all the answers in swirling blue. His harsh tongue. The cutting words. The glares, the bruises from his hands holding her too tightly. His kisses. The gun pressed to her temple

(she loves him she loves him _god_ does she love him).

"Get dressed and meet me outside. Take all your personal belongings so you can't be traced back here."

"Where is Jose taking Juvia?"

He grins wickedly. "You're don't ask the questions. Remember, Gray's life is in _your_ hands."

 ** _. . . . ._**

She packs a small bag filled with her personal items and tucks Gray's Desert Eagle safely in her waistband. Juvia fiddles with the trigger, wonders if she should just flick the safety and put one right between Jose's eyes.

The apartment is dark and empty, and she rushes out the door. She does not say goodbye to all the places Gray waited for her, does not look back at the bed and the ballads the sheets still sing — this _isn't_ a goodbye

(at least, she hopes.)

A heavy mist has settled over the street, and a light shower of rain greets her as she steps outside. The water collects in her hair, coats her lungs with each breath. There is wonder in the swirling dark clouds, romance in the rain droplets cascading over her skin — Juvia does not feel it.

She feels _nothing._

A gunmetal grey Jeep Wrangler sits on the curb. The tint is dark and the vehicle looks _deadly_ — matte black rims, heavy tyres, the fender flares and brush bar speckled in mud. The engine roars to life as she walks towards the car and drowns the sound of the rain. The driver honks, and the window opens to reveal a face she hasn't seen in years.

"Oi, Rain Woman! Hurry the hell up, we gotta go!"

 _Gajeel_.

A ghost of a smile lights up her lips. "Gajeel-kun, it's been a while."

He chuckles in that odd manner of his, throwing the car into reverse and speeding away from the place that was everything to her. She doesn't watch the city lights fade, nor does she wave goodbye to her home. Her eyes stay focused on the sky and the rain — the only constant in her life.

"Where is Jose?" she asks Gajeel, and he snorts.

"He took off in that Chrysler of his, told me to tail him."

"Do you know what he wants from us?"

Gajeel shrugs his shoulders and shifts the car into fifth gear. "No fucking idea. All he said was that it had something to do with Avatar's mission."

Juvia's breath hitches.

 _Gray_.

She can only hope that he is okay, that he is unharmed — but Jose has never been a man of honest and pure intentions. There is more at work than they know of, and it is up to her to unravel the knots and connect the strings as Jose's Rain Woman

(not as Gray-sama's Pale Lady, not as Juvia).

She takes in a deep breath, exhales. Slowly, she hardens her heart and steels her resolve. The Rain Woman needs to take over; the woman who could kill a man in a second and break his heart in an instant—the woman whose hands wielded guns and wore blood.

The woman who didn't feel.

The woman who just _was_.

 _The Rain Woman_.

 ** _._**

 ** _._**

 ** _._**

 ** _you're deader than ever  
and falling forever_**


	9. i made a deal with the devil

**edited 1/12/2017**

* * *

~Lyrics are from **_Problems_** by **Lil Peep**.~

* * *

/

 ** _hold on to my revolver  
they ain't looking for you_**

 ** _._**

 ** _._**

 ** _._**

 _THE TROPICS ALWAYS SET HIS SKIN ON EDGE._

The dry heat scorches his body, the humidity sends his mind into overdrive. The cold is where he thrives — the biting snow and gales keep him from wandering astray. Gray huffs and slings the assault rifle further over his shoulder, opening his eyes to the sinfully clear and bright sky.

He misses the rain.

The very thought _burns_ him. The rain is depressing and a constant reminder of just how much he has fucked up his life to the point where he currently stands

(but then he is struck with the image of a girl raising her head to the sunless sky with a watery smile and kind eyes, and all his previous objections freeze on his lips).

And, despite the fact her hair hangs in dripping tangles in his memories, she resembles a mourning angel born from the adversaries of his mistakes.

He is going to kill her.

The life he leads is much too risk-prone and dangerous; one false move and she will be nothing but a distant memory reflected back in his tired eyes whenever he stares at his worn face through a mirror.

God, does he fucking hate her—

but god, he can't leave her.

"Hey, Fullbuster! Get your head in the game!"

He scowls at Buraiya and leans further back against the concrete wall behind him. Bora, some pompous minion of Jose's, waves wildly with his hands at the bulky men pushing large shipping crates to the dock. Inside the metal shells lay tonnes upon tonnes of cocaine — the drug that could end internal wars and bring a smile to his own frozen lips.

"So, lover boy," Jerome has sidled up next to him, nose scrunched as the smoke from Gray's cheap cigarette cloaks him in a poisonous fog."You must be doing good for Jose to want to meet with you."

Jerome's words freeze Gray in his place, cigarette halfway up to his mouth. "What?"

"Comms tent, right now. Jose wants a video conference with you. _Alone_."

Before he can sprint into the cover of the jungle Jerome has him held fast by the gun strap crossed over his shoulder. Gray fights against the bastard's hold, spits curses and threats. He can walk by his damned self; he doesn't need some egotistic faggot bodily dragging him to comms. He isn't afraid of Jose or what he'll hear—

(he is deathly afraid of what he might _see_ ).

Jerome unceremoniously dumps him in the tent's entry and stomps away like a miffed child. Gray hisses a curse under his breath and stands, dusting the sandy soil from his sweat-slicked skin. A beat-up rugged laptop awaits him on the conference desk, and Jose's sick grin and twisted eyes light up the screen.

"Ah, Gray. Just the man I wanted…"

Gray scowls and walks over to the desk, refusing to sit in the chair awaiting him. "What the hell do you want? I followed your damned orders—what the fuck else do I need to do?"

"Now, Gray, is that any way to treat the man in control of every aspect of your life? Hmm?"

He cannot argue back because the damned bastard is fucking _right_ , and the thought makes Gray's skin crawl in the implications depicted in Jose's manic grin. Instead, he remains silent, staring at the screen with as much malice as possible. He will obey but _dammit_ he will not go quietly.

"You've always been such a troublesome child," Jose drawls. "But I have long since come to the realisation that there is no taming that rebel in you."

"Your point is _what_ , exactly?"

"You have done good work for me," Jose states, and Gray senses that the conversation is rapidly spiralling into dangerous territory. "However, I am afraid I am not done with you quite yet."

"What do I need to do this time?"

"Oh, nothing life-threatening per say. I just need you to ensure that the cartel relocation goes smoothly with no incidents. Once you have arrived in Hargeon leave everything in the hands of Arlock; he will be waiting at the dock. After that, I have a special task that only _you_ can do."

The sneer twisting Jose's lips and the gleam in his eyes tell of destruction and sins, and Gray wonders if the bargain he struck with the man was worth all the blood on his hands. "What's the task?"

"Meet with the Balam Alliance on Tenroujima. There is word that Zeref was spotted there two weeks ago, and data collected from drones sent by Grimoire Heart suggest he hasn't moved from his position. There are fears he may be dead, a rather alarming deduction indeed. Your job is to oversee the retrieval while simultaneously keeping an eye on those under the Alliance. I have a…plan, if you will."

Gray's fists clench by his side, exhaustion pooling in his limbs. "I'll do it," he seethes, "but I refuse to have any part in that grand plan of yours, got it?"

Jose barks a laugh. "There is no need for you after this. I have my most elite reassembled and prepared for the happenings on Tenroujima. All you need to do is keep me posted and do your job, understand?"

Gray nods stiffly, raking a hand through his dishevelled hair. "The deal was that I would be done after this. I will hold you to that."

"Oh, I know you will. However, it seems I've thought ahead of you once again. I have my own bargaining chip, you see."

Unease coils in his stomach like a spring, but he refuses to show it to the conniving man on the screen. "There is nothing you can use against me. I have no ties to anything."

The lie stings his tongue, slices his skin with its sin. There is all but one person left in his life—

and she is no stranger to the dealings of their kind. She knows more about the untruths in his scathing voice than even he does; she who can wash away the blood on his hands with her crystalline tears. The woman that could render him speechless, the woman who could leave him motionless with her adoring gaze.

The woman of the pale and of the rain.

The unease is now a ravaging serpent with razor-sharp fangs tearing his innards apart. He tries to reign the emotions in—

because dammit, he is Gray Fullbuster. He does not get caught like a deer in the headlights. He can kill without so much as a blink. He is devoid of any warmth — a man carved from stone and death-inflicting glaciers.

"Beautiful, isn't she? I must thank you. Had it not been for you, I would have never got my Rain Woman back."

And his worst fears are true.

Because, standing just a few metres away from Jose is Juvia, armed to the tooth and shooting at targets in the rain. Jose further manipulates the camera so Gray can see the side of her pale face, and he finds himself gazing upon her image on the screen in barely contained horror.

The only thing left of his Pale Lady is the ever-present rain cloaking her.

The steel in her eyes, the line of her lips, set of her jaw—

it is all so _wrong_.

 _What the fuck had he done to her?_

"No," he hisses. "How fucking _dare you_ drag her into this?"

Jose chuckles, and a click is heard through the small speakers of the laptop. The sound is familiar — a gun reloading. A handgun is aimed at her unsuspecting back, safety off and ready to fire. Gray's muscles tense as he strains to hold himself in place. There is nothing he can do, fucking nothing at all.

"You _will_ listen to me, Gray. Otherwise, I will kill her. Understood?"

" _Yes_ , just fucking put that thing away. _Now_."

"As you wish."

The gun is put away and Gray feels as if he can finally breathe again. His eyes bore into Jose's through the camera, the stormy blue of his irises swirling with rage. "This wasn't part of the deal. There was no need to involve her."

"I call the shots now, Gray. I suggest you refrain from demands like that— after all, her life is in _your_ hands."

Before he can retaliate the screen turns black and Juvia is gone, as is Jose. Gray cannot stop himself even if he tried—

he pulls the rifle from his shoulder and sprays bullets into the phantom image of Jose left on the dark screen until he is left with no ammo, but even that doesn't stop him. He rams the butt of the gun into the laptop over and over again, his barely controlled rage causing his entire body to tremble.

There is no thrill, no rush.

No relief.

As long as _she_ is in the clutches of the man who smiles behind the sight of a gun, there will be no other thought in his mind. Gray was _responsible_ for her, he _left_ to save her from himself. And yet there she fucking was, caught in the middle of his shit again. There is no escape from the adversaries of his past, it seems.

He has forever been surrounded by death and darkness, after all.

(But _god_ he is going to save her—

even if there is _nothing left_ of her to save).

 ** _._**

 ** _._**

 ** _._**

 ** _take what the devil offers  
i got nothing to lose_**


	10. reminds me that it's killing time

**edited 1/12/2017**

* * *

~Lyrics are from _**The Bitter End**_ by Placebo~

* * *

/

 ** _you shower me with lullabies  
_** ** _as you're walking away_**

 ** _._**

 ** _._**

 ** _._**

 _SHE REMEMBERS HIM WITH JESUS ON HIS BREATH._

His strong arms cage her between him and the wall, hips pressed flush against hers, hard chest driving her further up the cool tiles with each sinful thrust. He mumbles curses under his breath, sharp tongue turning the words into soft, selfish prayers. The way he takes her leaves her lungs burning for breath.

He had _wanted_ , he had _sought_ , he had _stolen_ —

she can't get enough.

Gray bids her goodbye between the sheets. He kisses her with such bruising force, her lips tingle and burn for days after his departure. Every curve, every swell, every dimple of her body is his to memorise and bless with each stroke of his devilish hands.

She needs to remember these moments because she knows she will never be able to physically relive them. Gray is gone

(and she is _nothing_ ).

The gun pressing into the small of her back stamps the notion into her skin like a searing brand. The weight of it crushes her bones and her skin tingles against the semi-automatic.

"This isn't like my Rain Woman," Jose hisses and wraps a hand around her hip, pulling her further back against the gun until she is quivering from the pain. "I'm sure you remember what happens to good little girls that don't obey."

She swallows the whimper threatening to bubble from her chest and locks her limbs to prevent them from giving out on her. His vile breath against her neck repulses her, makes her stutter what he wants to hear. The words that spill from her chapped lips aren't hers; they are _his_. "Juvia will try her hardest next time."

Jose snaps the scowl back on his face and returns his gaze to his henchman, the one that greeted them with a sick grin and wild eyes drenched with a familiar malice. Her ex-lover of a human trafficker-turned cartel leader can barely manage a blink when the gun is rammed into his mouth.

Jose pulls the trigger when she is frozen — because she may be the Rain Woman but there is still a sliver of Juvia in her bones; still a whispered kiss of Gray-sama's Pale Lady gracing the skin of her chest. The bullet shatters the back of Bora's throat and breaks through the precious bone in his neck.

He is dead before his body can hit the ground.

"You better try your hardest," Jose growls and shoves her shoulder. She stumbles forward and narrowly misses landing on the body of the dead man — the one meant to find his ultimate end at her bullet. "Make yourself useful and start readying the cars."

She nods her head resolutely, refusing to meet his cold glare. Her discarded gun is hurriedly placed back in her holster, and her bloodied fingers tremble only slightly. She can feel Jose's condescending smirk on her back, assessing her worth.

"Aren't you forgetting something?" he calls mockingly, gesturing with his gun to the body by his feet.

Juvia watches him carefully, shakes off the desire to walk away and never return. Good girls _obey_ and dead girls _rebel_. Wordlessly, she grasps the dead man under his armpits and begins to drag his lifeless weight from inside the abandoned factory. Jose chuckles darkly to himself and leaves her huffing in the doorway.

Bora is the dead man cradled in her unwilling and unforgiving arms.

Jose calls him _useless_ , a _waste of time_ —

just like her.

That is where Gajeel finds her, huddled beside the pool of crimson and staring at the raging sea outside the doorway with glazed eyes. Jose's presence is stale, much like the dried blood coating the skin of her pale hands.

"Fucking hell," he grouses and rests a heavy hand on her shoulder. "The fuck happened here?"

Juvia does not flinch under Gajeel's gloved hand. "Jose happened."

"Fucking oath he did," Gajeel mutters and shoots a surreptitious glance at her non-responsive figure. "You okay?"

She can feel herself nod, barely even wincing when a clap of thunder warns of the storm brewing. It is Gajeel that startles, and he blows a frustrated breath through his clenched teeth.

"Shit, that storm doesn't sound good. We gotta head out soon; get a grip between now and then, you hear me?"

She watches with lifeless eyes as Gajeel throws Bora over his shoulder. He marches back into the rain and between the gaps of the corrugated iron walls, she can see her partner and long-time friend attach lead weights to Bora's cold ankles and wrists, swaddles him with a roll of chicken wire. His body is hurled into the raging sea like a sick sacrifice to the old Gods, the empty alleys of Hargeon's port alight in the forks of lightning above their heads.

The rain leaking from the ceiling washes away the blood pools from the concrete ground—

(but her hands have long-since been stained crimson).

 ** _. . . . ._**

The rain follows them out to sea.

Angry waves try and push them back to the shore, but Jose simply faces the walls of grey with a wicked grin and loose wrists. The yacht's engine refuses to give out under its captain's relentless urging and cuts a path through the unsettled sea.

Juvia raises her head to the sky, allows the freezing raindrops to collect in the hollows of her cheeks and slide down her neck. The water washes away the fragile lines of her face and douses the Rain Woman's steely eyes in a fresh coat of armour; a layer that she hopes may never chip or be tarnished again.

She can feel it in her bones, in the suffocating air coating her lungs with dysphoria and doom—

the end is nigh.

The magazine slips from her rain-slicked fingers as she struggles to attach it to the firearm in her lap. It is Totomaru's chuckle that brings her back to the task at hand; the preparation for war.

"A little birdy told me something _interesting_. Maybe you can enlighten me further?"

Juvia straightens her back and focuses her gaze solely on the pale man sitting across her. "Juvia can try to."

He raises a dark brow and meets her empty stare with narrowed eyes. "Well, according to this birdy, our Rain Woman found herself in the bed of a certain member of Avatar. Now, tell me: is that true?"

Juvia stiffens, and her clenched fists give Totomaru all the answer he needs.

"Who would've guessed," he chastises like an intolerant parent, ripping the firearm from her grip and examining it carefully. She is half-expecting him to aim the sight at her and squeeze the trigger, to blast away her infidelities with a single, condemning bullet. When she looks up from her lap, she is not looking down the dark tunnel of death.

Totomaru has the gun aimed at the back of Jose's oblivious head.

"How sick of you, to fall for the enemy. But _he_ is the real bastard for pitting you two against each other in some sick death game. What a fucking spectacular way to die."

She wants to surge forward and do _something_. There is a war in her heart between the Rain Woman, the woman she _used_ to be, and Gray-sama's Pale Lady, the woman she _longs_ to be. Rain Woman wants indifference but Pale Lady wants to take the gun from Totomaru and riddle Jose with her pain, her struggle, her raging and roaring love for the only man able to make her forget.

Gray-sama is _hers_ —

(but she is never his.)

"Juvia never fell for the enemy," she whispers instead because it is true.

Totomaru laughs without humour. "So Jose never told you."

"Told Juvia what?"

Totomaru lowers the gun to watch her with quiet amusement. "Jose is turning on the Alliance. We're being sent to Tenrou to exterminate every single one of those pricks — and last on the list is Avatar since as of last month Arlock became Tartaros' bitch."

The roaring world stills.

A grey ocean threatens to take her in its desperate arms and she wants it to coat her ribs, to wash away the horrifying truth wedged in her chest like a claymore: she is still Jose's pawn, and Gray is no longer a rook.

They are both pieces to a sick game far beyond what they thought they could comprehend, and there is no way for them to leave — no way for them to turn back time and simply forget. They are too far gone.

Her endgame, her checkmate, has been captured and all she can do is drown in the knowledge that _she can do nothing._ After all, she has forever been a distasteful smudge lit up against a pristine backdrop. A pawn, no more useful than a bomb shelter when the pin of a grenade has already been pulled.

She is being sent to kill her Gray-sama—

and he has been ordered to lay a bullet in the space between her eyes.

Juvia does not want the hurt or the cold or the storm anymore. She wants to hurl herself over the yacht's rail and plummet to the seabed far below them. She wants to sink slowly, with her dead eyes reflecting the endless blue abyss for all eternity until the pale flesh rots to reveal the smooth ivory beneath.

A world without Gray is hardly a world at all—

but a world without Jose could end and begin everything.

She does not take a second to think. She simply _acts_. Like a violent summer storm, she surges forward and rips the gun from Totomaru's loose and unguarded hold. The gun cocks itself into her arms eagerly, as if it too cherishes a world without Jose and his network of bargains and lies.

She is the Rain Woman now, a relentless machine conditioned to _kill kill kill._ Through the rain, she aims for Jose's back, right where his vile heart pumps life-giving blood.

( _Drip… drip… drop…_

 _Juvia… must not… stop…)_

With the hushed whisper of a name on her lips, she shoots.

 ** _._**

 ** _._**

 ** _._**

 ** _arouse and see you're mine  
(see you at the bitter end)_**


	11. kings never die

**edited 1/12/2017**

* * *

~Lyrics are from **_Kings Never Die_** by **Eminem** x **Gwen Stefani** ~

* * *

/

 ** _here to stay  
_** ** _even when i'm gone_**

 ** _._**

 ** _._**

 ** _._**

 _THE BULLET NEVER REACHES ITS TARGET._

In her haste to end everything, to _kill_ , she forgets about the safety. Aria is ripping the gun from her frozen hands moments after the empty click fills her heart with absolute dread.

Sol offers little comfort. "We mustn't make such rash decisions, Juvia-chan. Jose will be dealt with. There is no need to soil your beautiful hands with such impure and unworthy blood."

 _No_ , she wants to say, because Jose's death is destined to fall at her hands; the very hands he himself coated in scarlet and lies. He has played God for much too long. All the pushing, the ache, the pull, the death, the _blood_ , the _sacrifice_ —

she has suffered at his hands for much too long.

His life is _hers_.

But it is all too confusing. Who is she, if she isn't the Rain Woman or Juvia or Gray-sama's Pale Lady?

There are too many thoughts in her head and she isn't sure of who she is. _Juvia_ would have never done such a thing; wouldn't have let the thought cross her mind for even a second. The _Rain Woman_ would have remained perfectly still and stoic, as cold and sure as black ice or the endless and deep sea. But Gray-sama's Pale Lady is still a mystery. Gray-sama's Pale Lady cannot be calculated or measured, is as free as a tornado in the fertile spring.

It terrifies her—

and she is for the first time completely lost.

The ground threatens to swallow her up and she can do nothing at all. Gray-sama isn't there to keep the numbness at bay, to drive the _nothingness_ away in a blizzard that is all him and only him. There is only a dead woman and a sea alive with storms and violence.

"Fuck, Rain Woman," she can distantly hear Gajeel say through the roaring in her ears."What the hell's wrong with you? You're so damn lucky that the safety was on. So fucking lucky."

"Well, _I_ thought it was quite the show. Would you agree, Aria?"

"Shut the fuck up, Totomaru. If you don't have the balls to kill him, then fine. But _don't_ try and get Rain Woman to fix your problems for you. She's not your fucking puppet that you can just manipulate whenever you fucking feel like it."

 _Juvia_ wants to reach out a hand and lay it upon the tarnished skin of Gajeel's arm, as if that one touch could melt the steel in his bones and reassure him that she is fine. Juvia is okay, there is no need to worry about Juvia, Juvia is much too insignificant to fret over.

 _Rain Woman_ wants to rise to steady feet and prove that she is more than just a woman of the sea. Rain Woman is stern and controlled. Rain Woman will obey. Rain Woman is not afraid. Rain Woman can be anything and everything.

 _Gray-sama's Pale Lady_ hasn't forgotten the real threat. Oh no, _her_ eyes haven't left the back of Jose's head ever since they first came to rest there.

Her Gray-sama has always been a God in her eyes, a rook made from ice and steel. She must protect him, no matter what

(he is much too damaged, his heart unfixable.)

He is hers to save.

Her legs are lead but she will still stand. Her eyes are dead but she is alive with storms and violence. She is broken but she _is not defeated_. She is Gray-sama's woman forever and ever.

"Sit the fuck down, Rain Woman. You ain't going nowhere until you calm down."

She pushes Gajeel's heavy hand away and stumbles to the stairway that leads to the captain's control room. Only garnet and Gray are on her mind, blood and ice—

the empire will always fall.

"Juvia-chan should listen to Gajeel-kun, yes! There is a plan that Juvia-chan mustn't interfere with!"

Blood and ice.

 _The empire will always fall._

"Fuck up, Gajeel. There's no stopping her. Just fucking look at her! She probably won't even remember killing the bastard."

Blood and ice.

 _The empire will always fall._

"You three! Start gearing up! No good will come of this — _that_ I am sure of."

Blood and ice.

 _The empire will always fall._

The rain assaults her angrily as she slams her fist against the hull of Jose's yacht. It cloaks her in its malevolent rage like she is a mourning angel built entirely of sorrow and ache. Gray would have told that it is becoming of her, but he isn't here.

There is only Jose.

He turns towards her slowly and watches her with knowing eyes. The blackness of his eyes promises pain but Juvia is blind to it. All she sees is a roaring sea and a dead man.

"I've been expecting you, Rain Woman," he drawls lazily, uncaring to the fact his breaths are numbered. It infuriates Juvia to no end. Has he no fear? How far has he allowed the darkness to spread?

Just how invincible is he?

"Juvia is here to kill you," she says to him, barely swaying on her feet as the ocean destroys the world outside the yacht.

"You humour me, Rain Woman."

Blood and ice.

 _The empire will always fall._

"Juvia isn't laughing."

"You are quite right. But I _know_ you, Rain Woman. You are terrified. Good girls obey, am I correct?"

She rips Gray's Desert Eagle form its secured place at her thigh and aims it at Jose. His lips grin but his eyes are hungry wolves. They want to tear, to shred, to kill. "Juvia is nothing to Jose."

He raises one dark brow and the condescending sneer falls away to reveal the indifference beneath. There is no expression in the shadows of his face — only an insatiable hunger for blood. "Allow me to remind you, then."

There is silence for only a moment, and then it is broken. The ocean roars, Jose growls, and she screams. One moment for the world to quake, one second for her mind to shatter.

A knife protrudes from her thigh.

The saw teeth of the blade embed into her flesh and she swears that the knife has ploughed through bone and muscle. Her hands ache to pull it out, but she knows better. Gray's gun remains clasped in her white-knuckled grip, but nothing can take away the pain. Each second brings a new wave of hurt that threatens to cripple her, to take her away.

She won't let it.

Somehow she manages to remain standing on steady feet, and she almost convinces herself that the pain and the knife are only imaginary.

"Dead girls rebel, yes?" Jose chuckles without humour. "What happened to my lovely little Rain Woman, hm?"

"She grew up," Juvia hisses. "She realised how cloaked in darkness Jose really is."

"And after I took you in, clothed you, gave you a home and food, this is how I get repaid?"

She pushes the memories down back where they belong. Now is not the time for reminiscing. It is killing time.

Blood and ice.

 _The empire will always fall._

"Juvia was only an investment, a tool for Jose to use. Juvia is more than that now. She doesn't want any part of Jose's sick schemes."

She is on the rain-slicked ground before she can blink. Jose looms above her, all shadows and whispers of sin that promise hell. He grabs the knife by the hilt and impales her further while she is frozen beneath him. Juvia is unable to stop the cries tearing from her clogged throat. They fill the empty grey sky with desperate prayers and the rain beats its war drum as the blood leaves her body.

"This will teach you!" Jose yells and thrusts the knife with all his strength. Juvia screams and cries, but there is no salvation. There is only the rain—

 _Drip… drip… drop…_

 _the empire must fall…_

With the little strength in her good leg, she pushes Jose off her. He slides across the slick floorboards and she scrambles after him with all the rage of a wounded lioness. The tears trickling down her cheeks are disguised by the pouring rain as she howls in rage and pain. Each movement aggravates the blade embedded in her thigh, but she has to ignore it. She cannot afford to stop moving. She must _end_ Jose to begin everything.

"Killing me will do nothing!" he roars around the pale hand clasped around his throat.

"Jose's life belongs to Juvia! Jose and his empire will die!"

Jose grins wickedly before uttering, "Kings never die, darling."

"Juvia will prove they do!"

This time, the bullet lands its mark.

His blood brings with it the lives of countless others who had died at his hands and it is everywhere—

on her skin, coating her hands, covering the floor in its scarlet embrace.

The world is silent.

The waves still.

The rain lightens, and her world is black.

 _Blood and ice._

 _The empire will always fall._

 ** _._**

 ** _._**

 ** _._**

 ** _when i close my eyes  
through the passage of time_**


	12. give my gun away when it's loaded

*insert kappa face*

 **edited 1/12/2017**

* * *

~Lyrics are from **_9 Crimes_** by **Damien Rice** _x_ **Lisa Hannigan**

* * *

/

 ** _leave me out with the waste_**  
 ** _this is not what i do_**

 ** _._**

 ** _._**

 ** _._**

 _A BRIGHT LIGHT SHINES ON HER FACE, SCARES AWAY THE GAPING MAWS OF DEATH AND BLOOD._

She squeezes her eyes closed further still, not yet ready to face the harsh reality of her existence. There is still so much to do, so much to save, so many words yet to say. The slick ground beneath her is near freezing and it almost feels like an embrace to her feverish mind. Of course, she knows it isn't Gray-sama—

Gray-sama is _lost_.

It is that thought that sends her scrambling onto weary feet. She stumbles the first time, falls the second and barely manages to pull herself upright on the third. She knows she is crazed and acting purely on instinct. But she cannot help herself—

kings never die, after all.

Jose may be gone but his plans are still set in motion. Gray's life is still as much at stake as it was when that bastard was alive. She must find him because he is out there somewhere, waiting upon orders that will never come, and relying on an army that fled long ago.

As frantic as she is, she is not unaware of the murmuring voices some metres away from where she scrambles to stand. Gajeel's voice is there, as is the rest of Element Four. But there is a stranger, whom she cannot place.

"The Seven Kin of Purgatory is on the island as we speak, searching the area for Zeref. Hades and Bluenote are somewhere in their airship surveying the area for any unwanted guests — word is that the Allied Forces intend to send a squad down to obtain Zeref and Hades."

"I thought I told those old bastards to stay out of it?"

Gajeel's irritated voice fills the small area and Juvia is forced from her thoughts by the sheer volume of it. She doesn't need to open her eyes to see him glaring at his clenched fists, heavily booted foot tapping against the ground irritably. It is another reminder that she needs to _get up_ because there are people that need her—

(and an unwanted reality she has to face).

"When have the Allied- _fucking_ -Forces ever stayed out of our business? You were so stupid, taking on that job from Makarov. Now he, and his little Council fuckbuddies, know too much."

Totomaru's low growl.

"Jose miscalculated by assuming the entire Alliance would convene on the one island to chase a rumour. Tartaros certainly wouldn't get involved in such business, and are smart enough to calculate for a betrayal within the community that _they_ control — which is the only solid fact we have in all this."

The nameless man.

"And what word do we have from Oración Seis?"

Aria.

"They have no intention, or desire, to involve themselves with matters regarding the Alliance. Midnight himself informed me that the bargain they struck was a truce between those under the Alliance, not a contract binding them to service."

"So at least we have _two_ damn things we can trust to not go wrong."

Totomaru again.

"We need to move out. Sol and Totomaru, I need you two to try and locate Hades' airship, see if you can pass on this information and recount the events that led up to this. They need to know that we're not the enemy. Gajeel, you and the Rain Woman will be accompanying me."

Aria's carefully controlled voice.

"And I'll make my way back to the mainland, then. I cannot guarantee it, but I might be able to delay the Council, if only shortly. It should grant you enough time to find Avatar and leave."

"Thank you for all your help, Jellal. I will be sure to pass on this information to Jerome as soon as possible."

The nameless man — Jellal — moves through what Juvia can only assume to be a back exit through her cracked lids. Totomaru and Sol leave next, and she is left alone in the tent with Gajeel and Aria.

Juvia has already made up her mind. She will wait quietly for Aria and Gajeel to leave the room before running into the dense jungle of Tenroujima, where she will search tirelessly for her Gray-sama.

He needs her—

(and she needs him just as much.)

He is her _breath_ ,

the air in her _lungs_ ,

the chaotic _beats_ of her heart,

the lump in her _throat_ ,

the _blood_ in her veins,

the _waver_ of her voice,

her trembling _hands_ ,

her _reckless love_ ,

her _hurt_ ,

her _cold_ ,

her _storm_.

She will always be nothing without him; Gray's-sama's Pale Lady forever and ever and ever.

"Why the fuck are we staying behind? We should be out there, trying to figure out what the fuck we can do with all this."

Gajeel's voice comes to her through a tunnel, and she can only suspect the blood loss. Her thoughts are mindless noise, a confused hum in the back of her head. Consciousness is there and then it is not.

Elusive.

Slipping.

 _Gray-sama_.

"We have a …important assignment."

"Ex…plain."

"It seems this war… wasn't Jose's only… plan. I'm sure you've noticed how… close our Rain Woman has become to a certain… Gray Full…buster."

 _Gray-sama…_

 _Gray-sama..._

 _Gray-sama…_

"What's some… crush got to… with all this?"

"Gray's promotion to Avatar… not luck… planned meticulously. Avatar… always going to betray Phantom Lord… Tartaros…Arlock always believed in… world Zeref… bring… after all. Who better… trust than…Tartaros?"

"Get…point… old man."

"Very… last job Avatar did… Jose… overseeing the cartel relocation…they were there on… island… watching exchange…they…never ordered to complete… follow-up at Hargeon… despite… Jose says."

"Stop talking…riddles… get to… fucking point."

"The _point_ is… Jose lied…Gray…sent the boy to Tenroujima… oversee Zeref's retrieval… away from Avatar….that period… Avatar made… shift… Gray… traitor for… with Jose."

"They want… kill Gray?"

The inky blackness freezes so suddenly, so violently, that it crashes and shatters into millions of colourful shards at her feet. Juvia is awake and running out the tent quicker than she can think, much less make sense of her surroundings.

Jose was right after all—

 _kings never die._

She can hear Gajeel tearing through the trees and overgrowth behind her, screaming all her names to the trembling sky. _Rain woman. Crazy lady. Where are you going?_

 _Did you really think you could hide from me? Run from me?_

 _I am everywhere._

No, no. Something is wrong. That isn't Gajeel's voice or his words. Flashes of green and sand obscure her vision—

( _I'm here to stay._ )

Roaring and swirling—

 _(Here to stay.)_

Blood and ice—

 _(Stay.)_

Rain and cold—

 _(Gray-sama.)_

Juvia is barely able to brace her fall. Her palms sting and burn, droplets of scarlet mingling with the rain falling against her skin.

 _(You're fucking insane.)_

Her head slams into a rock as her knees slip from under her. Warm, sticky blood drips from her brow into her lost _lost_ eyes and everything is red. Red like the bruises on his knuckles, red like his eyes when he thought she wasn't awake, red like the blood bathing him in sin.

 _(You're all mine, baby, all fucking mine.)_

 **Black**.

 ** _._**

 ** _._**

 ** _._**

 ** _it's the wrong kind of place_**  
 ** _to be thinking of you_**


	13. you were my drug (and we were fucked)

I'm a bitch. Review?

 **edited 1/12/2017**

* * *

~Lyrics are from **$TING** by **The Neighborhood** ~

* * *

/

 ** _when we had our first kiss  
it was your favourite thing_**

 ** _._**

 ** _._**

 ** _._**

 _HE KNOWS THAT THERE IS SOMETHING DEEPLY WRONG._

There is a knot in his chest unlike any other he has felt before—

(even unlike the time when he was young and dumb and two steps away from the edge of a cliff, two fucking precarious steps away from a roaring death).

He picks up the radio and tries it _one more_ time, pushing all thoughts of knots and rocks from his head. "Jose, come in you fucking bastard. What the hell is going on? Why can't I see anyone?"

He waits, but he is again met with silence on the other end. Gray curses and raises his head to the clear sky, eyes closing against the sun's harsh glare. The damned knot is back again, twisting itself in his chest and squeezing the air from his lungs. There is a taste to the air — not quite blood, not quite fear. The island may be silent, but the air buzzes with excitement and bloodlust.

And then he understands, and he hopes to hell that he is _wrong_.

"For _fuck's sakes_!"

He drops to the ground heavily and desperately crawls to cover, blade clenched tightly in one white-knuckled fist and pistol in the other. He wants to be wrong, for the first time in his life he wants to be wrong. But there is no running from the truth and god, does he know that _there is never anywhere to run._

He is stranded on an island in the middle of fucking nowhere, with drugged-up and gunned-up idiots running around killing in the name of a man that may as well be an urban myth.

Though the jungle is quiet, Gray knows better. He knows that there are eyes everywhere — one wrong move and he will be trying not to swallow his tongue as a bullet enters his brain.

After all, he has been on the other end of that scope plenty of times; enough to be able to recount just how long it takes for a man to fall dead after being shot, just how many shades of blue and grey his face will turn before he hits the ground.

"Jose," he hisses into the radio, eyes darting around the trees. "You're a dead man walking."

Frequencies can be hacked, and so he takes the radio and smashes it to pieces under a rock. He cannot afford to take any risks. There's only survival here, in his little world drenched in rain and cloaked in darkness. He takes his phone from his pocket, gives it the same treatment, and buries the remains in the undergrowth.

He can only wait for the day to break.

* * *

As the sun finally makes its descent into the swirling sea, the island comes alive. Insane-sounding hollers echoed through the trees near him, setting Gray on edge.

"Master Zeref! Master Zeref! We've come to save you! _Us_ save _you_!"

"Yes, Master! Let us help!"

"No, shut up, Kawazu. You're too stupid. Master doesn't care about you."

" _I'm_ too stupid? Yomazu is the stupid one!"

The two men step into Gray's field of vision, and he grips his gun tighter in response. The one with the shrill voice, Kawazu, is a broad-shouldered and large-chested pale man, who bears the Grimoire Heart insignia on the right of his neck. Yomazu is his polar opposite: small, lanky and dark-skinned. They both carry heavy machine guns and wear mismatched body armour.

His body moves quicker than his brain. As the two men jog past him, Gray reaches out with a foot and trips up the taller man. Kawazu falls down with a shrill shriek, which is quickly drowned out by the sound of a gun firing. Rolling off the dead man, Gray springs up and takes aim at Yomazu.

Half a second later he joins his friend in the afterlife.

All is still for a few seconds, and then Gray's cursing breaks it. "Where's your fucking silencer? Fuck fuck _fuck_ ," he hisses to himself, dropping to cover again. He stays there for several moments, listening intently for footsteps.

When he is certain there is no one in pursuit of the gunshots, he moves silently back to the bodies of Yomazu and Kawazu. The dead men have turned ashen under the light rain shower, the blood from their wounds colouring the sand a murky crimson. Gray scowls and moves the bodies to cover behind the bushes he hid behind, so they will not be seen.

After several moments, he sprints to the tree line as silently as possible. He stays there flattened against the trunk of a tall palm, straining all his senses. There are more people out there, he knows this. He can feel it in the air, taste it on his tongue.

He is not alone.

From the corner of his eye, he sees a wisp of dark hair and cranberry lips. Gray sucks in a breath—

 _"_ _I'm going to kill you, Gray. You don't deserve to live."_

and braces himself firmer still against the palm, gun at the ready.

 _"_ _I don't blame you. Do it now, kill me."_

There is a teasing rustle to his left, and he clenches his fists. She always did love toying with him.

 _Ruby lips tremble, crystalline tears spilling from kohl-lined eyes._

A dark, feminine chuckle leads him to snap his head to the left, where he catches another lock of hair and a ruby smirk.

 _There is a gun. And then she is gone._

"Stop fucking around," he hisses, every muscle in his body taut like a wound up coil.

He is never prey. He is the hunter, the panther stalking in the moonlight, the wolf crouched in the thick snow, the all-seeing eagle—

(but _she_ was always his favourite exception).

There are lips at his ear, and they whisper to him sweetly. "Did you really think I wouldn't find you?"

Gray whips around with blazing eyes, her name rolling off his tongue without thought. " _Ultear_."

She grins at him with false cheer and moves forward to wrap her arms around him. Before she can even touch him with one perfectly manicured hand, he is flinching away from her like a scorned child—

(like how the sky falls whenever she whispers his name, how her heart broke when he revealed that only lines and snow keep him sane).

"Look at you," she drawls, circling him like a hungry lioness. "You've done well for yourself."

He eyes the Grimoire Heart symbol proudly stitched into the fabric of her headband. "As have you."

She scoffs at him, fingering at a strand of her dark hair. "It's what Ur would have wanted."

Hearing that name brings back flashes of that dreaded night, where he realised he was closer to being a child than a man because he couldn't pull the fucking trigger. Couldn't move quicker, couldn't put aside his own problems for one minute and focus on the world around him, couldn't save her, couldn't even fucking bury her.

His grip on the gun loosens minutely.

 _So pathetic._

 _So weak._

"Cat got your tongue, _Gray_?"

He glares at her, imagines that she will crumble like sand before him and he can finally stop chasing ghosts.

 _But she looks so much like her mother._

"Your tricks won't work on me anymore, Ultear. I'm not the same person from back then."

She grins and gazes upon him like all things wicked and burning. "Really?"

Gray swallows thickly as she circles around him once more, nails dragging along the bare skin his muscle tank leaves bare. Teasingly, slowly, tormentingly. He wants to flinch away again, _god_ does he want to—

"Then why does it sound like you're trying to convince yourself of that?"

Her sweet whispers push him to the edge of a cliff he never knew he still stood upon. But he plants his feet firmly, tethers himself there. He will not succumb. He will not crumble.

"What do you really want, Ultear?"

He can feel her grin against his shoulder, "It's not a matter of what I want, but what you can give me," her fingertips creep down his tattooed arm to his wrist, where she dances around his hand gripping the gun.

Gray finally takes a step forward, tearing away from her snaking arms and burning eyes. He does not give her the satisfaction of watching him berate himself. No, all she sees is his back—

(unswaying and solid like a marble pillar, just like Atlas condemned to hold the weight of the world for all of eternity).

"You were so willing to die back then. What changed?"

 _Damp blue locks tangling with cold, pale fingers._

 _Nimble hands gently pressing a bandage to his damaged skin._

"What was it that you said back then? I think it went something like 'please kill me, Ultear! I can't live with myself! Take my life!' And yet here you are, no more than two years later, refusing to even meet my eyes…"

"No," he growls instead, lost within all the hidden implications behind her words.

"Excuse me? I don't think I heard that correctly. Could you repeat yourself?"

 _"_ _To Juvia, you are."_

 _"_ _Juvia loves the cold, the storm, the hurt. Gray-sama can give her that."_

Was that the reason why? Because of her and her odd ways? Is she the explanation for his sudden will to survive, to endure, to make it back to her side in one piece?

Is she the fucking reason why he's prepared to put a bullet through Ultear's head just to be one step closer to her?

"That fucking rain woman," he mumbles with an annoyed sigh, shifting his attention from the endless sea to the woman behind him.

"Well, Gray? What will it be?"

"I'm not dying today, Ultear," he begins, meeting her malicious eyes with a glare like death. "And I don't plan on dying anytime soon, either."

Her lips twist into a feral grin. "Then I guess we have to do this the hard way."

"Don't hold back on me, Ultear. I know I won't."

"Worry about yourself, Fullbuster."

A moment later,

 _hurricane._

 ** _._**

 ** _._**

 ** _._**

 ** _and you weren't lying  
_** ** _when you said it would sting_**


	14. stay with me don't stray

_**rip**_ gajevy

 **edited 2/12/2017**

* * *

~Lyrics are from _**fragile**_ by **gnash** _x_ **wrenn** ~

* * *

/

 ** _i'm sorry you saw me shaking  
_** ** _stay with me for a day  
_**

 ** _._**

 ** _._**

 ** _._**

 _THE WORLD SHATTERS WITH EACH LUNG-TEARING GASP FOR BREATH._

She is covered in blood and drowning in her misery, forever spiralling down a deep and dark rabbit hole into a place unknown—

(a place where his violence hasn't yet touched, his eyes have never beheld, his storms and blizzards have not yet destroyed).

Juvia is terrified.

She braces one trembling hand against the ground, pushes herself up. She manages to pull her torso half-way before she is sent tumbling and sobbing to the blood-soaked undergrowth. The hasty stitches holding the flesh of her thigh together have torn apart, leaving a gaping wound in its wake.

With scarlet-stained fingers, she is able to remove her shirt and press it against her wound, broken sobs turning to keening howls. The pain of the wound and losing Gray is too much to bear. She wants to rise like a tsunami, to leave the world quivering and vulnerable and _shattered just like her_.

But there is a small voice that whispers sweet, devilish nothings to her. The Rain Woman wants to curl up and lose herself within the heavy downpour. Forget everything and everyone, reject the world, succumb to the darkness lingering just beyond her reach. To rest forever and ever undisturbed, like Annabel Lee in her tomb by the sounding sea.

But Gray-sama's Pale Lady is too far gone.

It is _his_ Pale Lady that stands on shaking legs and takes a single step forward. She stumbles, but the imaginary arms of her beloved push her forwards each and every time.

Two steps, three. Four steps, _fall_.

Get up, start again.

Two steps, three. Four steps, _this isn't how it's meant to be._

Five steps, six. Seven, _fall._

 _Get up_ , just once more.

Two steps, three—

"Just give it up already."

She clenches her teeth, fists clenched so tight they shake. "Juvia cannot. Gray-sama needs her."

Gajeel sighs a curse and gently lifts her into his arms. "You're in no state to be wandering the fucking jungle, okay?"

Juvia tries to fight him, but her limbs are too weak and her mind is much too fogged. She can only manage small, desperate pleas: "Put Juvia down, Gajeel-kun. _Please_."

"Not a chance in hell. I'm not going to just stand by and watch you destroy yourself over some fucked up suicide mission."

She cannot stop the tears from rolling down her cheeks, or the broken-hearted sobs that tear apart her throat. " _Please_."

Gajeel ignores her and hands her his radio instead. "Alert the others that we are en route to the base."

Juvia shakes her head like a stubborn child, contemplates throwing the device into the surrounding trees. She doesn't want help, she doesn't want to go back to the base, she doesn't want any of this—

 _she only wants Gray_.

They have come too far for her to just abandon him. Too many days have been spent lamenting his absence and worrying herself to the point of sickness. She _cannot_ and _will not_ give up on her hurt, her cold, her storm.

"Gajeel-kun," she tries once more. "Let Juvia go. Let her do just this _one thing_."

"Like hell I will."

With reckless abandon, she slips from his arms and tumbles to the ground like a marionette with slashed strings. Gajeel tries to stop her but she is a summer storm in her need to _escape_ , to be _free._ But it is still not enough; it will _never_ be enough.

Her desperate plight lasts all of seven seconds before she is smothered in his arms again. This time he only restrains her flailing limbs as she cries and beats his chest, screams her ache, rejects the world.

There are shards of glass in her throat and livewires in her veins. Rope around her neck and mortars in her brain. _A little girl fading away all over again._ The tips of her hair are poison and everything is falling, breaking, crumbling apart and—

 _she can do nothing but watch_.

"Let Juvia go," she cries over and over again until there is no breath left in her quaking lungs, only her inevitable demise.

Gajeel is tense, as if the marrow in his bones has been replaced with concrete and steel with each tear that splashes against his skin. He is silent but strong, and Juvia wishes she could take some of his strength.

"You really care about this Gray, huh?" he says finally.

She nods emptily. "She does, so much so that she would give her own life to save him."

"That much?"

"It's what love is. There was once a time when Juvia believed she would never find love, but she found it in Gray-sama. He can take away her rain. He can freeze her hurt. She is nothing without him."

Gajeel appears thoughtful for a few moments, and Juvia distantly wonders if it is possible that he has found love too.

"Okay, here's what's gonna happen—"

Her breath hitches and she watches him with wide, hopeful eyes. "Does this mean…?"

"Only if you promise not to do anything stupid," he amends.

Tears of relief catch the setting sun's final rays, and the luminescence bathes her in liquid peace. "Juvia promises!"

"First, we're fixing your leg. Last thing we need is for you to get an infection. After that, we'll try and find Gray. Deal?"

"Deal!"

 **. . . . .**

"Juvia, for fuck's sakes, _stop squirming_."

She sucks air through her clenched teeth, willing her limbs to be still. "Juvia is trying her hardest."

Gajeel snorts and threads the needle clumsily through her skin again, using the bend of his knee to trap her legs in a tight hold. "You were the one always stitching me up. Feels odd."

This time she unable to keep the whimper in the back of her throat and Gajeel shoots her an apologetic glance.

"I always sucked at this. Sorry, Sprinkler."

She manages a weak smile. "No need to apologise, Gajeel-kun. Just focus on finishing quickly. Juvia wants to find Gray as soon as she can."

Gajeel remains quiet, and Juvia can recognise the uneasiness in his eyes. But now is not the time to ask him, and now is not the time to force the secrets from off his chest, so she instead focuses on directing him on how to tie off a stitch when he fumbles.

"Almost done," he assures her some moments later.

Juvia tips her head back to examine the world upside down. She is a child again, hanging from her lonely window counting raindrops as they fall from the ground and plummet to the city in the sky—

 _drip… drip… drop_

 _juvia's gloom… never stops_

"Oi," a gruff voice pulls her from the dark recesses of her mind. "Snap out of it. Do you wanna find Gray or not?"

Juvia blinks heavily and focuses her gaze on her thigh, where Gajeel has wrapped it in a coarse bandage that smells strongly of antiseptic and near-death. She ghosts her fingers over the white fabric, as if the purity of it could quell her stuttering heart and reveal the secrets of the webs wound around her limbs.

Gajeel hauls her to her feet before she can get lost in the mazes of her mind once again.

"So if I was an Avatar dick-sucking prick, where would I be?" her partner hums aloud, grabbing her wrist and veering them off the beaten track.

"Shouldn't we be looking for Gray-sama instead?"

He shoots her a knowing look and scoffs. "Same shit."

Juvia allows a microscopic smile to pull at the corners of her blue lips, shadowed eyes sweeping the forest floor for a sign of her Gray. A broken branch, a patch of ripped fabric blowing in the breeze, a gust of cold, a storm. _Anything_.

A pair of boots precariously protruding from a bush.

She halts her steps, pulling Gajeel to a stop along with her.

"The fuck, Sprinkler—?"

"Look over there," she murmurs, pointing to the boots in the bush.

Gajeel is instantly on alert, pushing his pistol into her waiting hands. There is no need to talk — they have done this countless times before. Her partner creeps forward, walking a slow circle around the shrub. Juvia follows from a couple paces behind, gun cocked and ready to fire should they be ambushed. Gajeel holds a fist up and she stops where she is, watching carefully as he nudges the body of a small, dark-skinned man.

There is no response.

Gajeel roughly drags the body from the shrubbery and confirms what they both already knew.

"Dead. Probably for an hour, going by the size of the blood puddle."

Juvia joins him by the bush and looks for any personal belongings that may have belonged to the nameless dead man. Peculiarly, she finds pieces of a smashed radio, but nothing else.

And then she spots the symbol stitched into the man's bulletproof vest with bright blue thread.

 _Grimoire Heart._

Gajeel spots it at the same time she does and lets out a heavy sigh. "Fuck sakes," he hisses.

"Gajeel? What's wrong?"

"Unless Grimoire Heart is going around killing each other, I can only think of two people that could have done this," he meets her gaze briefly, turning the broken pieces of the radio over in his hands. "Either the Allied Forces have dragged their asses from their fancy corporate buildings, or this was left by that Avatar fucker."

Juvia holds her breath. "Gray-sama was here?"

Gajeel shoots her a look that says ' _don't get too excited'._

But Juvia is ecstatic nonetheless, searching the ground with new-found vigour. Twenty paces away from the dead man's body lies another body, though this one is pale and large.

"Gajeel-kun! Juvia has found another body," she calls and her partner trudges over.

"Doesn't look like they were firing at each other," he concludes, having already placed the bodies side-by-side.

Juvia hums an agreement. Both men have been moved post-mortem judging by the half-concealed drag marks. Had they shot each other, there wouldn't have been any drag marks other than those left by Gajeel.

"So it was Gray-sama," she whispers.

"You better hope your damn ass it was," he mutters more to himself. Juvia ignores it, casting her gaze away from his worried eyes out of respect. He will tell her his troubles when he is ready. There isn't a need to press.

"There are some tracks by the tree line. Shall we follow them?"

Gajeel grunts and begins the trek to the surrounding trees, eyes cast to the ground and shrubbery. There isn't much — Gray-sama has always been a God carved from the berg that sank the Titanic, an expert in all things malevolent and malignant.

"Loverboy sure ain't makin' this easy," Gajeel grumbles, and Juvia hides another smile.

"Gray-sama is—"

Crashing through the trees.

Gunshots.

A broken voice, screaming a single name to the desolate sky: " _GAJEEL!_ "

Her partner stiffens, and Juvia watches as all the blood drains from his face. "Levy?"

And then he is crashing through the trees with reckless abandon; too stricken to curse, too dead to remember his Rain Woman, too much alive to turn his back on the other woman.

"Levy! _LEVY!_ "

Too _frightened_ to remember just who he is and the odds piled against him.

Juvia looks longingly to the dense jungle encasing her Gray in his tree-casket. She can see the hungry vines twisting around his torso, the Hellebore blooming from the footstep-like bloodstains shadowing him like a trail of breadcrumbs.

But the clock has struck twelve, and the wolves are _hungry_.

Casting one last look behind her, Juvia runs after the crashing in the trees. Towards Gajeel, and **away from her Gray** —

(her heart _shatters_ like _struck_ _glass_ _. )_

 ** _._**

 ** _._**

 ** _._**

 ** _'_** ** _cause i'm fragile  
god, i'm fragile_**


	15. holy water cannot help you now

Thank you for all the lovely reviews. Some were sweeter than others, but that's okay.

I thought I'd just give a quick reminder: you **will not** find invincible Juvia as we know her here. You'll only find terrible things. You'll find the Rain Woman **before Fairy Tail and Gray,** the Juvia that hates **_the rain_** more than she possibly should be able to. Here, you will find the Juvia that **_drowned a whole fucking town_ ** because Gray **left her** without a word, no goodbye letter, nothing.

As for Gray... you'll find the demon that could have been had he not found Fairy Tail. Maybe this is what could have been had he been allowed to fester after Ur's death. How gloriously **_fucked up_** he would be.

 **edited 2/12/2017**

* * *

~Lyrics are from **_Seven Devils_** by **Florence and The Machine** ~

* * *

/

 ** _seven devils all around me  
seven devils in my house_**

 ** _._**

 ** _._**

 ** _._**

 _HE STRIKES WITH FISTS MADE FOR RUIN; CRUMBLING EMPIRES AND ROTTEN MURDER._

Ultear dances away and surges forth again, desperate to destroy but still yet hesitant. She may be Romulus but he is Odoacer atop his throne of broken swords and blood-wine betrayal.

"Give up!" she screams, and he grins much too wickedly for a dead man walking.

"Have I ever?" he replies in that tone he _knows_ she despises—

the one that left her begging and pleading on her knees, that which could cause the mighty mountain to bow if not for a moment.

"You've ruined me," she says instead.

Gray forces the knife in her hand towards the heavens, as if that single blade could slice angels through the pregnant belly and dispel the world. Chaos. Rot. Destruction.

Oh, how the tables have turned.

The thought is delicious, sinful enough in its malign lustre to force the Pale Lady from the recesses of his mind. He is drunk off the knowledge. Cocaine fingers and codeine dreams could _never_ compete.

"You were already ruined," Gray hisses back, knee ready to pound into her ribs but Ultear slithers away like a Black Mamba, fangs poised for the _bite_ : poison-tongue spitting words like they are black magic and shade.

Gray is revelling in the hunt. Look east and there she is, ready and waiting for the ruin. Look west and she is flying towards him on legs that once wrapped around him like twin vipers, blades clenched in fists that only ever revered, a vile sneer on vermillion lips that once whispered homicide and now scream gruesome blood oaths.

"Why won't you just die?"

He pauses for a moment—

 _cerulean locks and lips that tremble beneath his_.

 _Juvia's fucked up God, Juvia's twisted hurt, Juvia's caustic cold, Juvia's sorrowful storm._

"Because," he answers simply, "I've finally found something to live for."

Ultear's eyes rage and burn. _Death death death oh sweet death_ , they scream. "How unfortunate."

"I don't think so."

She throws one of her knives at him. Gray lets it skim the outside of his arm, examining the thin cut and ruby tears. "You're better than that."

He can see the helter skelter in place of her ribs. She wants to _destroy_. She wants to _cherish_. She wants _death_. She wants to _forgive_.

She says, "Ur is dead because of you," and Gray flinches minutely. Her hungry eyes lap up the tremble and she is stalking towards him, Saharan heat and Antarctica desolation. Rome-wreck and Hell-burning.

"Does it hurt?" a hiss. "Knowing that you killed her and couldn't even be there to bury her? Couldn't bear to face up to the fact that _she is dead_ and _you're not_?"

 _DEATH UPON DEATH UPON DEATH_

"How many have died at your hands? You have a _sickness_ , one that draws in love and spits out death. A cursed monster. _That's what you are!_ "

He breathes down her neck in short gasps, fingers wrapped around her slender throat unknowingly—

the death-monster is rearing its ugly head.

Ultear burns his skin with her glare, teeth bared, blood-red lips drawn into a sickening sneer. They are _so close_ ; Gray begins where Ultear ends, but there is nothing holy about their reunion. Angels don't know the things they do

(but perhaps that is best, the world can only handle so much rot).

"Shut the fuck up," he whisper-yells, begs and chants. "Just _shut the fuck up_."

" _No_ ," she roars rebelliously, never the good little girl. Always _pushing_ and _tearing_. God, he fucking hates her.

"I'll kill you," he promises but he can taste the lie; bitter copper and Nightshade.

The thought causes her to grin wickedly. "Do it. You'll prove my point."

He wills his fingers to tighten around her windpipe—

 _DEATH UPON DEATH UPON DEATH_

"Tighter! Stab me! Shoot my brains out! _End it_."

 _DEATH UPON DEATH UPON DEATH_

How easy it would be to slit the skin of her wrist, to pull out her arteries and fashion the weeping tendrils into a noose. What a way to die. Suspended gloriously from the skeleton of a once-mighty tree, neck snapped and head lolling listlessly.

"I'm going to tear your fucking heart out," Gray seethes, and his fingers tighten minutely.

Ultear smirks like a woman possessed. "That's funny; I thought I was the succubus?"

The memories come unbidden to him—

memories of roaring nights spent holed up in her write-off apartment, consuming each other, tearing themselves apart with greed, breathing lust and bleeding guilt.

 _DEATH UPON DEATH UPON_ _DEATH_

"Get the fuck out of my head."

" _Make me_."

He does.

Gray's grip slackens until she is hanging off his body, manicured nails leaving sticky trails of contempt down his skin. And then he is throwing her to the jungle floor, straddling her under him, _dominating_. The knife digs into her throat with each heavy breath, and Ultear teases him with her heady gaze.

"You can't do it."

Not a question, merely an honest-to-God truth.

He tries to, _fuck_ does he try to slice her jugular open. The blade twitches against her skin mockingly and he hates himself for it.

 _DEATH UPON DEATH UPON DEATH_

"Well, _I can_."

A second. That is all he is allowed before there is a knife forced into his hip, another between his ribs. He can _feel_ it between his bones, pushing to dig deeper. _You deserve this_ , it says, sliding further.

 _DEATH UPON DEATH UPON DEATH_

Gray is no longer Gray. Gray is gone. Taking residence in his skin now is a black-eyed and slack-jawed demon born from the blood of Lucifer himself. A Death Demon, an angel cast from the feather-bowels of Heaven for dabbling in things much too sinful for good boys.

"There it is!" Ultear almost screeches in morbid excitement, knees pressing into his thighs. She lightly carves his face with a blade in one hand and cradles him in the other. One-part Ultear from After, one-part Ultear from Before.

He allows her to have her fun; to revel in the knowledge that _Gray Fullbuster_ is a weak and bleeding mess beneath her—

that _she_ has consumed him once more, swallowed him up and stowed him away from the light.

When the blade traces a path to his throat, death-demon Gray has had enough. Violently, he thrusts his knee into her stomach until her ribs shatter. He feels the expel of oxygen wash over his cheeks, and knows that her last breath is not wasted.

"I'm not sorry," he lies yet again.

Ultear is still grinning like a woman gone mad despite the thin line of blood dribbling from the corner of her lips. "You're going to have to try harder than that, Fullbuster."

 _DEATH UPON DEATH UPON DEATH_

"I'm going to kill you, and then I'll hunt down that _little angel_ of yours and wring her throat. Maybe I'll make you _watch_ and murder you together."

 ** _black and blue_**

The need to _protect_ , to shield Juvia from the darkness plaguing and shadowing and _contaminating him_ is too much. He almost runs himself to the ground, too taken with disgusting feelings after years of isolation. He wants to ruin Ultear, as he never has before. To exorcise the black from her blood and string her up for all the world to see. May the Gods take pity.

The sound of choking has faded to the background, mingling deliciously with the sonata of waves crashing cliffs and the keening heavens. Zeus himself is there with him, bringing crescendo sky-claps as Ultear's elegy heartbeat slows.

Her nails claw at his wrists, and she writhes restlessly, hips rocking almost hypnotically.

"You won't fucking touch her," he growls in a chant, as if in prayer. "You'll stay the fuck away from her. You won't fucking touch her…"

He looks at his hands, finds them bleeding and weeping where they circle her bruising neck. His name splutters from her lips in choked gasps, with words such as _hate_ , _kill_ , _over_.

Gray does not notice Ultear drag her leg from underneath him. Maybe he does, but the quickly fading life in her eyes captures all his attention—

 _breathing lust and bleeding guilt._

She hooks her leg around his neck and _pulls_ with a grunt caught in her closing throat. Gray loses his grip, and they are tumbling like fallen stars, gaining momentum as the rain pushes them downhill. They tear at each other, Ultear with her hands in his hair and Gray attempting to push her off. The landslide forces them to a rocky slope and through tunnel-vision, Gray sees the edge of a cliff.

A breath, and then they are careening into the sky before plummeting down, down, down. Ultear glares at him as their backs hit the water, and the sea pushes them away from each other. The world down here is _angry_ , pulsing with a bone-deep chill. For once, Gray is cold.

Ultear swims towards him, hands reaching. She pulls the knife from between his ribs with a devilish sneer. Gray watches as the air escapes his punctured lung in mocking air bubbles. _Look what could have been_ , they giggle. _You're a dead motherfucker._

Gray desperately holds the breath left in his one working lung, urging it to clamp down on the oxygen with an iron-grip. In his peripheral, he sees ultraviolet bruises and flowing dark hair. Ultear is a siren now as she swims to him, desperate to watch him bleed and burn.

She punches his stomach, willing the breath to leave him. Gray cements his lips shut with his teeth, refusing her wish to be granted. Death and destruction suit him best after all. He would die before giving Ultear that power.

The sea rages against them.

It wants to expel the _black_ , the _sin_ , from its pure clutch. But the sky is grey, the waves almost black themselves. Death demons and fallen Gods are everywhere on this island, the sky itself weeping as Tartaros opens up its maw to the underworld—

 _("Juvia will do anything! Just please, don't leave. Please!"_

 _"_ _Don't leave Juvia all alone!")_

Juvia. His Pale Lady. The thorn in his side. Lover, executioner.

His cure.

His poison.

Abandoning all thought of Ultear, Gray swims up, legs pushing against the ocean's greedy clutches. _Come back and play_. _We're not done yet._ Gray claws at the current, and barely manages to break the surface when Ultear drags him back down again. Without a second thought, Gray tears his leg back and drives into her temple with a steel-capped boot. He watches her eyes flutter closed, and she drifts slowly, the ocean welcoming her down into the dark.

Gray knows she will find a way back to haunt him. Demons don't die, and Ultear Milkovich was never destined to meet her end at his cursed hand.

He breaks the surface once more and greedily swallows air into his one good lung. The air burns him, the rain pounding his skin in poison-pellets. His Pale Lady is here, and she is a wreck. He can almost taste her in the sky's tears, salt and something twisted; something pure, something not yet touched.

The sea is happy to push him to shore, and Gray fists sand in bleeding hands. There are half-washed away footsteps everywhere here. He spots the mighty steel warship parting the sea, traces the Allied Forces symbol with blurring eyes. He can't help but feel as if Armageddon has come early for him, but the tremulous sea looks more like Ragnarök. Jörmungandr has finally let his jaw loose and the world is splitting into two, the sea surging, sky falling, earth splititng.

Gray breathes deeply, barely registering the wince that accompanies the action, and allows his death-demon eyes to close and wonders—

did he imagine the flash of blue and pale tearing apart the ground to reach him?

(he _swears_ he will not ruin her, too) _._

 ** _._**

 ** _._**

 ** _._**

 ** _see, they were there when i woke up this morning  
and i'll be dead before the day is done_**


	16. love me better

Happy belated one year anniversary! Thank you all for the overwhelming love and support. It's been a crazy year, but we made it!

 _NOTE: on the 7th of August 2016, I edited chapter 1 and 6 and re-uploaded them once I noticed that they were actual fucking cancer. The new chapters 1 and 6 are fully edited and ready to read should you decide to go back for nostalgia sakes. Slowly I will work on fully editing and re-uploading chapters 2-9 just because I have grown so much as a writer than when I first began this, and I don't believe those chapters perfectly capture the recklessly rotten love between Gray and Juvia anymore. HOWEVER this is NOT an invitation to tell me what to write instead. Fiction is meant to be personal. I will not cut this story from a mould of 5,000 other Gruvia fanfictions. I know that there are some of you who really can't stand how I've portrayed Gray and especially Juvia but please note that FanFiction is not Build-A-Bear. I recognise you, and I'm choosing to ignore you. If you have a problem with ultraviolence, then I invite you to go write your own ffn and add it to the archive. Fade into the background. Never dare to be different. Ultraviolence is very personal to me; you have no idea how much each chapter exhausts me to create all this. I'm challenging myself and I'm enjoying myself. So be my guest, but don't tell me what to do._

~Lyrics are from **Gangsta** by Kehlani~

* * *

/

 ** _i need a gangsta to love me better  
than all the others do_**

 ** _._**

 ** _._**

 ** _._**

 _"_ _GAJEEL!"_

Frantic, stumbling footsteps. A string of curses. Mumbled pleas to Gods that have long since abandoned them.

Juvia follows the panic-trail left in Gajeel's wake, almost losing sight of him in the dense jungle. A lock of black hair here, a flash of camo pants there.

"Gajeel-kun!" she calls but he disappears into the jungle's shadow, mind much too distracted to recall that _he is not alone_.

They are no longer mindless pawns under the rule of a smart-mouthed tyrant. It is okay for broken hearts to beat, trigger-fingers to freeze—

but the set of his shoulders scream _murder_ and Juvia knows that she will arrive to absolute carnage.

The gunshots confirm her thoughts and she bursts through the dense jungle with wild eyes, taking in the scene with a Rain Woman gaze. Gajeel roars in the middle of a frenzied free-for-all, throwing bodies with his bloodied hands. The assault rifle previously bouncing between his shoulder blades is now in the shaking hands of a small woman with striking blue hair.

This must be Levy, the woman brave enough to attempt to tame a panther.

Juvia knows Gajeel can handle the fight on his own, and instead decides to lay a gentle hand on Levy's shoulder.

"Gajeel-kun will be okay," she assures, and the woman's bright doe eyes blink owlishly up at her.

The torn office wear hugging her petite figure is so out of place in a death jungle, a striking comparison to the dull sky and bloodied undergrowth. Juvia takes Levy's hand gently, directing her gaze away from the fight. Gajeel wouldn't want her to see the things his hands could do.

"Levy-san, can you hear me?"

"…Yes," a small whisper, barely even a word.

"Keep your eyes on Juvia. Deep breaths, in and out. You're safe now."

And yet despite the reassurance, a small voice whispers the opposite in Juvia's ear. That _no, everything is not okay_ because they are trapped in a death prison desperate to swallow them whole. Glinting eyes hide in the shadows with sights set to kill.

Their world is no place for pretty women with flawless skin and big, bright eyes.

"Levy," Gajeel calls, briefly meeting the gaze of the woman, "sit tight. I'll be there in a second."

To Juvia, he simply nods, and she instinctively understands his instruction.

"Levy-san, close your eyes for a moment," she insists seconds before the sounds of gunshots and agonised cries fill the clearing. A heartbeat later, and there is nothing more, only the heavy footfalls of Gajeel.

"C'mere, Shrimp," he beckons, and Levy is tumbling into his arms within seconds. The small woman holds him tightly, completely wrapping her entire being around his. Her shoulders shake with unshed tears as she burrows into his neck like a small child desperate for consolation.

Gajeel meets Juvia's gaze over Levy's head and a silent agreement passes between the two partners. Juvia stands and begins clearing the bodies from the clearing, dragging them into the surrounding tree line and out of view. By the time she returns her leg aches dully through the quickly fading haze of morphine.

Levy is somewhat consoled when Juvia returns to her partner's side, and her previously vacant eyes shine with tears and anger.

"I told you not to come here," she repeats to Gajeel, delicate hands fisted in her lap, "I told you to stay away and let the A.F. handle it."

Gajeel releases a heavy sigh, as if the conversation has been a battle fought multiple times. "Shrimp, you're forgetting who I am. This shit is what I'm built for, I'll always go back to it."

"But this _isn't you_! Not entirely, at least. You can be different, I've _seen_ it!"

"We'll talk about this some other time. I need to get you out of this fucking jungle."

"Why can't we talk about it now?"

"Because," Gajeel seethes through clenched teeth, "this is not the best place for coffee and blue-collar conversation."

Levy throws her arms up in frustration, wild curls falling around her face like hissing pythons. "You always do this!"

"Because I don't want to suddenly turn around and find you dead! We can talk about this later, I promise. But we need to _go_."

Levy suddenly wraps her arms around his neck and brings him down for a desperate kiss, tears falling from her closed lids. "I'm scared," she whispers against his lips, "I'm _so scared_ that you'll leave."

"I'm right here," he mumbles, eyes softening.

And in that moment, Juvia suddenly has hope for the two.

She lets them have their moment, fingers worrying the hem of her torn top. Gray has not left her mind once and the silence drowns her with worry. Is he alive? Is he injured? Is he searching for her, too? Or has he forgotten his Pale Lady? Has he found another?

Juvia's heart breaks at each thought—

how many men have already called her a crazy bitch and trampled all over her bleeding heart?

 _But Gray is different._

He knows darkness and pain. He has seen rain and lived through thunder. He has held guns like infants and snuffed out life-lights easily, too.

Her Gray can learn to love a Pale Lady, unlike the others.

"Sprinkler, I need a hand."

Juvia leaves her thoughts behind and turns to Gajeel, catching his assault rifle when he throws it to her.

"Watch our backs. I'm taking this one back to shore and then we'll head off again."

"You're not coming back with me?"

Gajeel meets Levy's heartbroken gaze with his own steely one. "I came here to do a job. I have promises to keep."

Levy stays quiet in his hold, instead turning her attention to Juvia. The woman examines her carefully, and Juvia feels small all of a sudden. Inadequate, almost.

"You're Juvia, Gajeel's partner. Right?"

Juvia glances to her partner curiously. Just how much does this woman know?

"Yes," she answers carefully, watching the surrounding jungle in an attempt to avoid Levy's doe eyes.

"I'm Levy McGarden. It's nice to finally meet you," she says with a natural smile, and Juvia hesitantly replies with her own.

"It's nice to meet you, too."

The rest of the trek back to shore is spent in silence, broken only by Gajeel's muttered directions. Juvia feels on edge; as if each step brings her closer to a fate worse than death. There are pins digging into her ribs, invisible hooks reeling her back towards the Death Jungle and its choking embrace.

Finally they reach sand and blue—

and she _shatters._

 _blood and sand_

There he is, her Gray, her everything and anything, face down and bleeding out.

 _no_

A shocked sob escapes her throat and she is flying towards him on legs that are suddenly lead, an unimaginable abyss already tearing apart her chest with each step that brings her closer to her End.

 _silence_

"No," she mumbles brokenly, frozen by his side.

She hears Gajeel's curse through the roaring in her ears, as well as his commands to not leave the shore, do not go near Juvia, stay the fuck there.

 _death_

Give her a moment to _grieve_.

 _NO_

She refuses the words, swallowing the scream bubbling up from her cavernous chest. _He can't be dead._ She grabs his shoulders and pulls him into her lap, cradles his head with hands made for love and christened with blood.

 _kings never die_

A pulse. Weak as the wing beats of a dying nightingale.

 _not yet_

"You promised! You said you wouldn't leave! Please!"

 _blood and sand_

"PLEASE!"

.

.

.

 _silence_

"I don't die that easy."

 _kings never die_

Pleading Plutos disbelievingly meet with narrowed galaxies, and Juvia is soaring. Much like the first time she kissed death, Juvia howls with anguished cries of his name, crystal tears falling to his forehead and pooling in the shadows of his eyes.

Gray is alive—

(but not for long).

His pained groans are testament to that and she scrambles to staunch the blood flow, praying for forgiveness and a miracle.

"Gajeel! Bring bandages, anything! _Help me_! _"_

Her partner is by her side within a second, but Juvia only has eyes for Gray. She holds his gaze, strokes the stubble on his cheeks with frozen fingers and whispers sweet nothings.

"Shh, it's okay. Juvia is here. It's okay. Juvia is here…"

"I'm fine," he attempts to reassure, but flinches when she readjusts her firm hold on his wound.

"Rain Woman, he needs medical attention," Gajeel voices aloud.

"Juvia knows," she whispers, and the sky roars along with her ache.

"The base is too far away. We wouldn't make it in time."

She stays silent, refusing to allow the truth to deter her.

"There is something we could do…" Gajeel trails off, shifting uncomfortably.

Juvia's breath hitches. "What?"

It is Gray who answers with an empty chuckle, dark eyes turning bitter. "You want to take me to the Allied Forces."

"They have a small hospital in that fucking ship of theirs. It's a logical solution."

"Then let's go," Juvia says firmly, already moving to stand with Gray's hand clasped with hers.

"You honestly think they would agree to treat _me_?"

Gajeel meets Gray's gaze and something passes there, something that leaves Juvia with even more questions.

Gray heaves a sigh and grits his teeth. "Fine. But as soon as they're done and I'm stabilised, we're leaving."

"Deal."

Gajeel heaves her Gray into his arms and walks quickly to the Allied Forces warship. He kicks at the hull, calling a familiar name.

"Jellal, open this damn thing up! Fullbuster is almost out for the count!"

There is a pause, and suddenly there is the sound of metal grinding and shouted orders. Gajeel steps into the threshold with purpose and there are doctors and nurses _taking away her Gray_.

Juvia clings to him, eyes hooded and nerves strung.

"Ma'am, you must let us treat him."

"Take her with you," Gajeel shouts at the nurse and his eyes challenge her disobedience.

"Very well."

And then they are walking into medical white. Her Gray lays on a cold surgery table, tethered to beeping machines and fluids at the wrist. His eyes meet hers through the panic of needles and oxygen wires, and she can hear him say the words his lips won't:

 _"_ _What's my crazy pale lady thinking about now_?"

"Juvia loves you," she cries to his closing eyes, "Juvia loves her Gray."

"Ma'am, you need to step away from the table otherwise we _will_ lose him."

She shakily takes a step backwards, willing her heart to be still. He will be okay. He will survive.

Kings never die and Rain Women never falter, but pale ladies _fracture_ and _crumble—_

(she loves she loves him _oh god_ , does she love him).

 ** _._**

 ** _._**

 ** _._**

 ** _i need a gangsta to always forgive me  
ride or die with me_**


	17. let the ocean wash away (i need love)

Almost at the finish line wooop.

There is a YT playlist for all the song mentions + shit I write ultra to. the link is **/playlist?list=PLXyIE6iPg780XR8BlSz8GcXvHEb2cw4mY** just pop that in your search engine and it will the first result.

 **edited 2/12/2017**

* * *

~lyrics are from _ **Religion**_ by Lana Del Rey

* * *

 _/_

 ** _'cause you're my religion  
when i'm down on my knees you're how i pray_**

 ** _._**

 ** _._**

 ** _._**

 _HER LOVE HAS ALWAYS BEEN TEMPESTUOUS AND RECKLESS—DECEIVING ATË WHISPER-TAUNTS AND ERIS DESTRUCTION._

The Dame of Delusion promises that he is only hers to cherish, to love, to keep.

Then there is the Mistress of Strife, Mother of the Merciless, and she whispers: darling, his eyes stray, don't you see? There is another woman who wishes to bring him to his knees.

It was those hauntings that drove Bora away, the man that wore stolen designer suits and spoke silver-tongued love confessions behind beaded curtains. _Of course I love you_. _I was just delivering some packages to that stripper studio. Nothing happened. I promise I promise I promise._

The woman that unbuttoned his pants with her teeth meant nothing. The blonde that dragged filed nails across his shoulders meant nothing, as did the lady with the exotic figure whom happily allowed him to snort powder-dreams off her exposed breasts.

 _Baby, you're not like the others. I love your gloom._

 _Do the men you kill haunt your dreams? Can I chase them away?_

 _Lighten up a little. You should greet me with a smile._

 _God, this rain is depressing._

 _I don't know when I'll be back. Since when was it your fucking business?_

 _Stupid bitch. Can't you take a hint?_

 _There's someone else and she's better than you._

Juvia is hard to love. Juvia is hard to love. Juvia is hard to love.

Juvia should not expect anything more than affection. Juvia should not expect anything more than affection. Juvia should not expect anything more than affection.

"Juvia?"

She blinks away the memories, threatens to kill the voices in her head with grenades and Glocks. Her back aches, and she looks down to find that she is cemented to the floor, shoulder blades and spine painfully digging into the metal wall. Her bones creak with each shift, dusty ribs threatening to crumble like old parchment—

tired piano key eyes that want nothing more than to close and never sing again.

"Juvia, Gajeel asked me to look after you while he steps out."

Her voice is non-existent. Juvia swallows thickly, tastes despair and blood. "Where is he going?" the words sound garbled and forced, but it is one step closer to feeling human again.

Levy reaches out a hand and gingerly pulls Juvia up. "He went to sort out some things on the island. How about we get some coffee, maybe something to eat? You can even get cleaned up a little."

She almost says no. The surgery bay doors beckon her as if a doctor will come bursting through at any second to say that he is okay, or that his burnt lungs are finally too tired to breathe. She glances at the bloodied remains of her clothes, takes in the ruby-stained skin, and changes her mind. Gray-sama would not want to see her like this, as a victim of the world he tried so hard to keep her away from—

(but she is a rain woman murderer and baby, do knives hurt when they pierce you through the back).

"That sounds nice," she says softly and accepts Levy's arm around her shoulders.

Gajeel's love guides her away from the hospital bay and towards the barracks, footfalls echoing throughout the narrow hallway lined with reinforced steel. Levy pulls her through the D-12 entry and into the first room on the left. The door swings shut with an empty clap, a dying dove's wingbeat.

"You look to be about Erza's size," Levy hums to herself, sculpted brows furrowed. She tears through the small closet filled with military sweats and uniforms, before tossing a pair of navy joggers and an A.F. logo tee on the bed beside Juvia.

"Thank you," Juvia says with a small smile, and finds that it is not forced.

Levy beams with the brilliance of a thousand suns. "It's no trouble! The showers are right across the hall. It's co-ed, but there are individual shower and change cubicles. Oh, and here. Towels, shampoo, conditioner and soap."

She takes the bundle of cloth and bottles into her arms and smiles again when she finds that Levy slipped a simple racerback sports bra on top of the pile.

The shower rooms are easy enough to find, and Juvia is beyond relieved when she finds them empty. Though she is no longer lost within the bowels of Death Jungle, she still feels fragile—

almost empty, torn apart and haphazardly put back together by an impatient maestro.

She takes the last cubicle of the row and places the borrowed ensemble on the bench seat, stripping off her ruined clothes and leaving them in a bloodied pile by the door. The water runs a sunrise-pink when she steps under the shower spray, lukewarm and pressure soft. She scrubs every inch of Tenroujima off her skin, careful to keep her stitches away from the water. She washes away the blood there with a damp face cloth, ivory skin slowly peeking from under the masque of red death with each careful stroke.

Bruises cover every inch of her. Black and blue, marigold and ultraviolet.

"Juvia!"

She startles, almost slips on the conditioner-slicked floor. "Juvia is listening!"

"Gray will be out of surgery in ten minutes!" Levy calls over the roar of the exhaust fans.

Her heart soars, thousands of questions tear apart her mind. She does not register turning off the water or pulling clean clothes over skin still spotted with water, even after a frantic towel-dry. Her hair almost coils itself in a towel turban and she is tearing open the cubicle door to a gape-mouthed Levy.

"Take Juvia to him," she gushes out, and Levy has no other choice but to lead her back to the medical bay.

Nameless faces pass in a blur, camo, navy and steel. When she sees the red cross, she is sprinting past Levy and to the surgery wing like an angel escaping the confines of a silvery hell. Nurses in blue tell her to _slow down_ , this is a medical environment, _stay seated_.

She only has eyes for her beloved.

Minutes pass slowly, dragging on for infinities. Finally, there is a doctor pushing open the frosted glass doors and searching her out. He tells her that it is a miracle, that his lungs resisted reinflation for a while. Smoker's lungs are beyond damaged, you see, and any airway procedure for them is made harder.

He is still under anaesthesia, but he should start to come around in a few hours.

Would you like to see him?

 _Yes, yes, yes a million times yes._

Doctor Gonzales takes her to his room, number two, bed number sixteen. A board stapled to the wall above his head reads _FULLBUSTER, GRAY_ in black marker.

And there is her love.

Shirtless and still spotted with blood and antiseptic fluid, he is as beautiful and burning as ever. The tattoos are a stark contrast to the dull steel and white linen of the room, and it draws her in like thunder to rain.

With gentle fingers, she caresses the lines of his face, traces a map to heaven with the spots of red dusted across his cheeks and neck. Time seems to meld together as she keeps watch over him. The moon crests the sky, countless stars come out to play, the sun washes away the night.

Golden light trickles over her heavy, raven coated lashes.

Life-machines are her morning robins and wrens, a steady rhythm tracking her Gray's heartbeat. Nurses come and they go, wrapping blankets around exposed shoulders and delivering coffee and toast. She nibbles slowly and cradles the cardboard mug in pale hands, forces herself to finish every last crumb and drop.

There is only love now.

The Death Jungle and Jose's web are so far away now. Stowed away on a warship surrounded by the warmth of her Gray, she gives herself away to the reckless love in her blood. It is okay for grenade-fists and claymore-minds to explode. Vivaldi is not waiting to hastily piece every part of her together until her Winter heart loosely resembles Spring.

A groan.

Her hands grab onto the edge of her beloved's bed, legs pushing her up and within his reach. Gray reaches a hand to his forehead, massaging his bruised temple.

"Jesus," another groan.

When he reaches to yank the IV from his vein, Juvia rushes in. "No, Gray-sama, leave the IV in until the doctor arrives."

"Juvia?"

Her heart is a hummingbird, Holy Water tears. "Yes, Juvia is here. Gray-sama is safe, everything is okay."

His eyes finally flutter open, and he blinks away the sunlight reflecting off the mirror behind her. "What time is it?"

Juvia looks for a clock and finds none. "Juvia doesn't know exactly, but the sun rose not too long ago. Gray-sama has been sleeping for around nine hours."

"Ah, shit. That's six hours more than I wanted to be here for," he muses, allowing Juvia to take his hand and stroke the ever-present galaxies splattered across his knuckles. His dark eyes watch her every move, cautious and guarded.

"Gray-sama's lungs had to be inflated again," she comments in the quiet. "Your hands needed a few stitches and bandaging, and the nurses said they'll keep monitoring you for the next few hours."

Her Gray accepts the information with a nod. "What about you?"

Juvia hides her smile behind the blanket over her shoulders. "Juvia is okay now. She just needs her Gray."

His eyes dart away, jaw clenching. "Juvia, about what you said before…"

She knows what's coming. "Juvia doesn't need to hear an answer, Gray-sama. Having her Gray safe and alive is enough for her."

His fists clench. "But that's not what you deserve," he mumbles and meets her eyes again. "I promise you, once all this shit is over, I'll give you a proper answer. But until then…"

This time she allows her smile to see the light. "Juvia understands. She is happy."

Gray turns their interlocked hands over and mindlessly traces the lines of her palm, content to let the morning pass in a shared silence.

For the first time, there is no rain to fade away to—

(and she misses it, but the stormy eyes of her love are enough to fill that hole in her chest forever and ever).

 ** _._**

 ** _._**

 ** _._**

 ** _everything is bright now, no more cloudy days  
_** ** _even when the storms come in the eye is where we'll stay_**


	18. i built a home for you, for me

Annnd that's a wrap! I'd like to thank each and every single one of you for your continued support. I hope you all enjoy the very last chapter of **_ultraviolence_** as much as I have. It has certainly been a long ride, and I hope you will be there right with me for the spin off AND the sequel!

Please, do not be afraid of telling me your final thoughts, asking any questions, telling me what's bothered you the most etc. There will be one more chapter to follow this but it will be a DISCUSSION, something I've been planning for a while. I'll need something to work with though for there to be a discussion! Everything will be completely ANONYMOUS.

 _ **THE FIRST CHAPTER OF THE SPIN OFF HAS BEEN POSTED!**_ Titled **_ultravice_** , it is the story of how Gray became the Gray we came to know here. There will be Fairy Tail, Team Natsu shenanigans, annnnd some gray&ultear that I have tirelessly hinted at.

~Lyrics are from **_To Build a Home_** by Cinematic Orchestra~

* * *

/

 ** _there is a house built out of stone  
_** ** _wooden floors, walls and window sills_**

 ** _._**

 ** _._**

 ** _._**

 _HE WATCHES HER WITH SHADOWED EYES FROM THE SMALL DISTANCE BETWEEN THEIR FACES._

Dull sunlight and marble lips, a steel dragon swaying beneath stitched hips.

Juvia's breath catches as Gray trails a steady hand down the column of her neck, worshipping her as if _she_ is the deity carved from precious sapphire and silver. Bruised knuckles brush over ivory skin, shaking with their need to _cherish_ , to _caress_ , to _revere._

"I'm sorry," he mumbles quietly into the hollow of her throat.

She stiffens under the weight of the words, alarmed eyes seeking his. Surely he isn't leaving?

"This sickens me."

A gasp wants to tear from her throat but she swallows it, sorrow prickling at red-rimmed azurites. She drops her hands and pulls away from his embrace, but Gray has other plans for his pale lady. Like the lion stalking a lamb, he watches her, eyes raking over every blemish and indent.

"I'm sorry," a kiss to her temple, right over a shallow cut, half-healed and aching.

"I'm sorry," another to her collarbone, above a violet galaxy.

"I'm sorry. I'm sorry, I'm sorry," her bruised knuckles, swollen wrist, raw fingertips.

"Gray—"

"No," he interrupts, mumbling against her stomach, "this shouldn't have happened. I thought I was keeping you safe by leaving. It's my fault."

Hummingbirds shatter her chest. Tears once again threaten to spill over, but they aren't born from a great collapse, or sorrow. These tears scream _hope hope hope_. Feeling bold, she gently cradles his face, forcing his gaze to her watery smile and flushed cheeks.

"Juvia would do it all over again if it meant saving her Gray," she says softly, tentatively; the world blurs and the room fades away until it is just them, alone out at sea.

His eyes are wild and dry. A burning man, deep in the desert, perched on the scorched remains of a home that once was.

"There is much more for us," she promises, "there are many things Juvia wants to share with her Gray. That is… if he'll let her. Juvia will understand if he decides to go back to what he knows best, really—"

A soft chuckle interrupts her rambling, and scarlet cheeks are hidden behind nervous hands. The crazed inferno has gone, leaving behind a small spark. No longer is he cold and empty, forever haunted by loneliness.

It isn't quite hope—

but it's one step closer to it.

She takes him in a tender kiss, angel dust and soft lust passing between them. They count the minutes through kisses and clumsy promises, keepsakes of their time spent fumbling in dark woods and leaping from cliff faces.

At sunset, a knock comes to the door. Gray grunts out a muffled _leave us_ , and Juvia echoes it with a breathy _come in_.

"Sprinkler," Gajeel says in greeting, eyes cautiously watching the man of ice beside her.

"I see you're not so dead anymore."

Gray laughs dryly, "Gonna take more than some addicts to put me six feet under."

He is hiding something. Juvia can see the truth dancing in his eyes, shadowed in dark. She leaves it though, deciding that Gray will talk when he wants to. There isn't a point in summoning avalanches in spring.

"Wendy says you're free to go," Gajeel declares, "she's done what she could. I'll have a nurse drop in some medication for both of you."

Juvia smiles gratefully, reaching out a hand to grasp Gajeel's, "And what of you and Levy-san?"

Gray stiffens. Juvia shoots her love a questioning look, but otherwise ignores the slight panic tugging at the frown on his lips.

"Shrimp and I have a villa in the Riviera with our names on it," her partner says smugly, a wicked grin easing the worry in her heart, "private beach, twelve rooms, marble baths."

"That sounds lovely!" Juvia gushes, and winks at her partner surreptitiously, "Juvia suspects Gajeel-kun and Levy-san will enjoy themselves."

"Well, we better for that price," he mumbles, before returning to all seriousness, "You two need to be careful for a while. We may have driven off the Seven Kin but Avatar are still a threat. They are refusing to believe that Fullbuster wasn't a spy."

"No doubt Jerome had a hand in that," Gray sighs, raking weary hands through bed-mussed hair.

"And that means it wouldn't hurt to lay low for a while. Keep off the grid, try to avoid big cities, you know how it works."

"I have a home up north we can stay in for a while. Nearest town is ninety kilometres away. We should be fine there."

His gaze shoots to Juvia, finds a silly smile there. Her heart soars at the prospect of living with her Gray, away from the cares of the world and surrounded by snow-capped mountains and pine forests.

"Here, take this phone. It has my number in it already. Call me if anything happens," Gajeel interrupts, and Juvia barely manages to catch the cheap mobile. One last wave and Gajeel is gone, the door swinging shut behind him.

There are no goodbyes, only an unspoken promise that they will see each other soon.

Gray burrows into her neck again, fingers tugging idly at blue curls. She asks the questions aloud; _is Gray-sama serious about going to the north?_

He chuckles and says, "Of course. We need a break from all… this, whatever _this_ may be. Let's start again. We can do it right this time."

Her answer is spoken with relieved laughs and crystalline tears, kisses and gentle fears.

What if Avatar manage to find them?

Wouldn't it be best to leave the country and do as Gajeel-kun and his love?

Perhaps they should wait for his lungs to heal?

Her Gray quietens the roar with a soft nudge. "We'll be okay."

And she believes him.

/

 ** _by the cracks of your skin  
i climbed to the top  
held on as tightly as you held on to me_**

/

Two months later finds them deep in the northern snow, hauling firewood back to their house in the heart of no-man's land. Pitched rooves spiral heavenward like church spires, cutting through the snow and serving as a beacon to _home_.

Juvia smiles at her love, a smile splitting her face in two. He rolls his eyes at the stupid expression but pulls her closer, adjusting his hold on the wood-stocked sled behind them.

The days are shorter this time of year. Each night they settle in by the roaring fire, watching the Aurora through glass exterior walls. There is no need for heavy drapes or curtains; their only neighbours are foxes and the occasional elk.

Most mornings are spent languishing in bed, watching snow fall and listening to firewood crackle in the hearth. They whisper Rilke and Byron to each other, eyes never drooping, hearts made for bruising—

allowing themselves to fall so deeply, madly in love.

Noon will usually find them bathing in after-love glow, back-to-chest in their freestanding bath. The inevitable chill will chase them from the water and downstairs, skin flushed and wrapped in warm robes. Her love will stoke the fire and she will brew tea using the old camping kettle Gray refuses to admit could use an upgrade.

Love will be made on the sofa, wrapped in faux furs. Plush cushions will soften their fall when her Gray rolls them over, exotic rugs warming the hardwood floors beneath their slow-dancing hips.

Bare and contented, they prepare dinner. Roast vegetables, slow-cooked broths, lasagne, whatever her love has the patience to help her create. Levy will video call them at half-eight and take them through the villa Gajeel saved for years to purchase. Stories will be exchanged, laughter shared and the strange relationship between Gray and Levy mends each time they converse.

She starts a scrapbook, compiles all the photos Levy sends and the ones she takes herself with Gray. Each page holds love, patience, healing; some nights she catches her love flicking through it while she readies for bed.

"I don't remember taking this one," he will call, and she has to hide a smile each and every time.

Of course he remembers, how could he forget? But stubbornness will forever be her love's greatest beast to tame, and she will tell the tale behind the captured moment when his pride won't allow him to ask her forthright for a re-telling.

A journal comes next, and she carefully scrawls across each page their journeys together—

the time they were stranded in a cave overnight during a rather harsh storm, that one time she talked him into attending a couple's yoga session, all the times she managed to take him down during training.

The story of when they went into town and adopted a husky because Juvia fell in love with her and Gray couldn't say no to either of them.

Their first big adventure ice-fishing as a small family.

Mishka's first birthday, and the cake Juvia baked.

The hikes they would take, all the times they made love to Chopin and Mozart.

The time they received a letter, blank if not for the name scribbled across the face: _Gray Fullbuster_.

The paper within, folded meticulously into thirds. The single sentence in shaking scripture—

 _long live the king._

Juvia tries to calm her love, but the damage is done. He installs cameras and luxury security systems, invests in a hidden surveillance room and attempts to talk Juvia into purchasing shutters for the glass walls she adores.

She refuses then, and they argue until Gray finally decides that the cameras will be enough. They can't live their lives in fear anymore. Gajeel agrees when Juvia calls him, and it is decided he will visit them soon.

The letter is mentioned not once after that, but it is never forgotten. Juvia will find guns in places they hadn't been previously, and her love can always be found outside, shirtless, shadowboxing with an unseen enemy. Eventually she gifts him with a boxing bag and together they train under the guise of becoming stronger.

He is preparing them.

For what, she can not yet discern. Some days she will feel pains in her thigh and will glance down, expecting to find a blade buried to the hilt in the flesh there. There is none, only a scar and thousands of kisses from two years of remorse and regret.

Their enemy is not yet ready to crawl from the darkness. All they can do now is continue to be as they always have, happy and in love.

She ignores the dark forests that suddenly seem to creep ever closer, and her love doesn't mention the words _king_ , and _long live_ again. She can only hope that this time, they are prepared. They will not be pawns on opposing sides again. This time they will be strong _together_ , forever and ever.

This time, _they_ will be the kings and queens of grenades and glocks, haunted truths and murder plots.

 ** _._**

 ** _._**

 ** _._**

 ** _and now its's time to live  
_** ** _and let die_**


	19. let's chat for a bit bbys x

WELCOME to the long-awaited **_ultraviolence_** discussion.

This discussion is something I've been planning for quite a while due to the fact that ultraviolence deals with some very deep, sensitive and controversial topics. I knew that there would be a lot of different opinions and I never really was able to address any of them — until now.

Just a little note: I have edited ultraviolence over this month. Each chapter is revised and a little different to the last time you guys read it. I'd love to know what you think! Please let me know if you spot any typos as this website has been fucking with my account lately. I don't know if it's just me, but the Doc X system likes to jumble around my words if I touch the document too much?

First topic of discussion: **_what the hell is wrong with Juvia?!_**

I completely understand why some of you did not like her character and felt she was a little too OOC, but she really wasn't. Not really. If we go way back into the anime and the manga when she is first introduced, you will find that she was given a very gloomy personality. Remember, before Fairy Tail she had nothing. Other children would tease her, she was never able to hold a relationship, and the rain was the only constant. If we translate this into the real world, surely it would affect her confidence in her adult years? Imagine for a moment that Juvia was never shown the light, that she was only ever known for being a Rain Woman.

Fast forward to her meeting Gray in both the anime and manga, and for the first time, her character is given some real substance. She refuses to combat with Gray — she would rather walk away than fear hurting him. And then he comments about the rain and how it's a little depressing, and we see her have a complete turn. She becomes irrationally angry, and then she is back to being bashful, and then there is that anger again before she finally calms down. But of course, that doesn't last for long. She is suddenly overwhelmingly obsessive — examples include stalking Gray, making him lunches in the shape of his face, creating little dolls of him and daydreaming fantasies about them.

Both the manga and anime use her "crazy bitch" personality as a form of humour but in real life? She would have been arrested! This is why I don't believe I went overboard at all with how I treated her. Remember, in the ultraverse, she is still that lost, little girl with no friends. No one except Gajeel has really given her a chance. We can expect her to have some self-esteem issues, a tendency to depend on the stronger person in her life, whoever that may be at the time.

I have said it countless times — abandon what you know about that strong, fearless, positive, and content Juvia Lockser. In ultra, life has sculpted her into being the Rain Woman she always was before meeting Fairy Tail. But that's all changing! In the sequel, more of the Juvia we know and love is coming out. She isn't so sad and lost anymore because she is happy. She has a great friend circle, her relationship with Gray isn't so toxic, and she is healed. People need to remember that although FT characters are fictitious it doesn't make them any less human. They are allowed to break.

To summarise:

· I've broken away from Fairy Tail's "friendship fixes everything" bullshit

· I've treated Juvia like a real person and not just a comedic aspect to fit some cruel stereotype

· I 100% do not agree with the comments made by some readers that Juvia is ridiculously OOC

· I will admit that some parts of _ultraviolence_ were cringey, so I've gone through and made quite a few edits to the entire story at the time that this chapter was posted

Second topic: **_what is up with Gray?_**

The story behind Gray will be explained in _ultravice_ , the spin-off to ultraviolence. There you will learn about his life in each chapter. I've planned to have around 2-3 Acts from every year of his life, or when something of extraordinary importance pops up. Examples would be the death of his parents, Ur and Lyon, the return of Deliora, Fairy Tail, how Ultear fits into his story and of course, Ur' death – which I already revealed in _ultraviolence_ to be his breaking point.

I have said it so often though — Gray, to me at least, does not seem so OOC. Like Juvia's "crazy bitch" stereotype, his was the moody "scene kid" to contrast Natsu's goofiness. And then in the Avatar arc, he displayed just how alike to his father's "villainy" he was. That cold, calculated, stoic and harsh personality he adopted was glorious, in my opinion. That Arc inspired this whole thing! Yes, he was acting, but Juvia's shift in personality was not feigned. Her reactions were real, and I really feel like they were short-changed throughout the entire fucking series, both the anime **and** the manga. It's like _Harry Potter_ pairings all over again (Jesus, don't get me started).

ALSO, I see so much anti-Avatar Arc bullshit and makes me want to give up the internet. The loudest noise is that their relationship isn't healthy, and I am quoting a Fairy Tail confession here: _" **Juvia literally went back to how she was before she met Gray when he left in the Avatar arc. Her development scarily relies on Gray and Gray only.** She actually cannot even function without him around, and hell, she damn near killed herself! **This love is not anything near healthy."**_

Your fucking point is what, exactly?

Gray is not the most mentally sound person either. If anything, I can confidently say that he is possibly the most tortured soul in the entire series. **He has never lived for himself**.

Why do I say this?

1\. After Ur's death, his sole mission was to exceed her. He did not grieve, he trained his magic to one day surpass her legacy.

2\. He was committed to killing himself through Iced Shell twice.

3\. After his father's "death", he becomes obsessed with defeating END to avenge his father.

I cannot for the life of me think of a single moment throughout the entire series where he was happy with just being complacent. I'm not insinuating that he was pathetic or so mentally unstable that he would have been a danger to himself, but he isn't exactly the happiest motherfucker in the series. If anything, _Gray's character development relies on Natsu bringing him out of his depression episodes._ Example being all those Iced Shell moments, the Avatar and Daphne Arcs and most definitely, the Alvarez Arc.

And really, is any relationship healthy? Look at Nalu — their entire relationship is based off Natsu not respecting Lucy's privacy and constantly making ill-timed jokes about how "fat" she is, and unknowingly encouraging Happy. Yes, it is treated as being comedic, but when's the last time you pissed yourself laughing after being told that you were fat? But we love their pairing because they just **click** because their relationship as friends was just so natural and inevitable. They didn't ease into their friendship, they dove into it and they were just so well-suited. I can make the same assumptions about healthy relationships with most of the other pairings, too. Gajevy is based off Levy being brutally tortured by him and then falling in love with him and Jerza is so tragically beautiful because they are this undeniable dichotomy _which never got resolved_.

Gray and Juvia's relationship wasn't as natural as the Nalu canon. They struggled through it. Clawed through it. Relied on it to _breathe_ , but denied it all in the end. Nothing about them was executed well thanks to some cruel stereotype. So, forgive me if I like to think that their pairing was simply convenient for the series. But, you cannot deny their potential. Here we have this woman willing to lay down her life for this tortured soul, and then we have this man who refuses to accept her help even though he fucking needs it.

To summarise:

· You'll find the demon that could have been had he not found Fairy Tail

· I wrote him like he had been allowed to fester after Ur's death

· I like to think I gave him some justice, however fucked up and backwards

· He was so glaringly tortured, and nothing was ever done to rectify that

· I really didn't write their relationship any different to how it was presented in the series

· **FUCK TUMBLR.**

Third topic: **_The ending was rushed._**

I agree wholeheartedly. However, I really struggled with it, and I still do. I don't know how the fuck to end it. I've drafted some revised versions, but they just lack substance. Throughout ultra, they are callous and toxic. I can not give them a happy ending. Life doesn't work like that. They can't go from fucking with each other's heads, fucking each other's brains out, putting holes in other people's heads, to domestic complacency. It doesn't work, and I can't give them that. IDK MAN.

 ** _So, that's that._**

I'd like to thank the following for reviewing, commenting, complimenting, crying, and supporting me throughout this!

apitatoor

Baby pink 'n Baby blue

BeccaMaine

BOSS02109

Cr4z13

Dark Ice King

Fra0408

Frosthsea

2

gruviaislife

gruvia-raid

huemid

iamalphagirl

Irff

jejeaza

Jellybean

Kiitcatt

Laudi14

Liraz Nightray

M

nxnjxy

OmegaSage037

penelope90

Raphiix3

sparkles princess

stinghotdork

TheLittleKittyMeows

Topyra

Toxic Shadows

WeepingDoll

wilathewitch

and all the guest reviewers!

Thank you also to all the followers and favouriters throughout these years. I started this when I was 16 and now I'm almost 19. What the fuck.

On a sad note, however, I'd just like to thank Gustav Åhr, better known as Lil Peep, for his music throughout these years. His art, his vision, completely inspired ultraviolence and the subsequent stories to come in this series. It's a complete tragedy what happened to him, and my thoughts are with his family at this time. _Rest easy, hellboy. You're in a better place._ Мир праху твоему _x_


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